


Vile Children

by Blightblood



Category: RWBY
Genre: Abusive Parents, F/F, F/M, M/M, Unstable Cardin, hints of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:52:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blightblood/pseuds/Blightblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, people are born into this world evil. Other times, they are turned evil by those who were born that way. He doesn't know if he was born that way, or he was turned by her, the same goes for his brothers. But one thing is certain to them: they are not welcomed either of the four kingdoms, she made sure they know of that. The only people they can trust is each other; the four all hope that is not the case to a certain degree. (A more brutal depiction of Team CRDL)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers...

_"W-what's in the bag?"_

_"A Boarbatusk."_

_"A... a Boba?-"_

_"It's another Grimm, I just caught it outside the house, talk about convenient."_

_"Co... cov-en-ant?-"_

_"-Shut up you dumb little shit. Now, take... GAH- **THIS!** There... there we go. Now, eat this."_

_"... I... I don't want to again.-"_

_"-Damn it Cardin, you need to eat it. It's going to help you grow powerful, like me."_

_"... But, but the librarian says it bad to eat Grimm mea-"_

_"-That bitch doesn't know shit about us. Not about our gift, and we can't tell her either Cardin... you didn't tell her, **did you**?"_

_"N-no! I didn't mommy. I didn't tell Mrs. Thrush about... our gift."_

_"Good... good, my Little Cardin. Now, eat your share of the heart."_

_"B-But... it hurts mommy. I-i-i-it burns when I eat it."_

_"I know it fucking hurts, but the more you eat, the more you get used to it. It helps us grow stronger."_

_"Mmmmhm- I don't wunna-"  
_

_**"- You little bitch!** Do you always want to be bullied for the rest of your life? By humans and faunus? Huh!?"_

_"... N-n-nooo... no mommy."_

_"And what about your little shit-stain friends, huh? Do you want to see Sky eat dirt again? Or Dove swallow glass?"_

_"No..."_

_"Yeah, no you don't. And you know what pisses me off about you, son? It's that you're more than capable of defending your friends and yourself from bullies, and yet you don't."_

_"... Ms. Thrush says-"_

_"-Fuck Mrs. Thrush, okay?! Now eat your fucking half of the heart!-"_

_"-Mrs. Winchester, I believe you're being too... prejudice, towards little Cardin. And you're flight is about to leave in thirty minutes, you should leave now for your mission. I'll take care of this."_

_"... Fine Richard. Cardin, when I get back here, you better be more **fucking** willing to eat Grimm hearts, understood?"_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... **UN. DER** **. STOOD?!-** "_

_"- **OW- MOMMY! IT HURTS!"**_

_"IT BETTER YOU LITTLE SHIT! Now answer me!"  
_

_"-YES! YES, I UNDERSTAND MOMMY!"_

_"... Good..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... Oh, Little Cardin. I don't want to do this, but Ms. Winchester is right; you need to eat this."_

_"... Why?"_

_"She told you, remember? You and her have to... consume the hearts to grow evermore powerful each day. That's why your mother is such a successful huntress, she... embraced her semblance."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... You know, when your grandpa did this to your mother, she didn't want to do it at first either."_

_"... Really?"_

_"Yes, and she didn't for the exact same reason you don't want to do it; it burned her body every time she did so. But the more and more your mother ate their hearts, the faster she became the huntress she is today... You know, the whole island worships her as a savior."  
_

_"... Yes, I know..."_

_"They are willing to give her their very lives just so their species can be freed of their constraints. She's a hero to them, just as much as she is to humans..."_

_"... But... but not faunus..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... Little Cardin, if... if you consume the heart, I'll take you, Dove, Russel, and Sky out for ice cream tonight."_

_"R-really?"_

_"Heh, yes, really. But... only if you... eat this."_

_"..."_

_"Cardin... you know how your mother gets when she finds out you didn't eat your food."_

_"... Okay..."_

_"Good show, Little Cardin. I'll contact your friend's parents while you eat your heart..."_

* * *

"Cardin... Cardin, get up man."

"Fucking- no, don't wanna'." Came the leader of CRDL, who's voice was muffled by the smothering of his face in his pillow. His partner, Russel Thrush, simply rolled his eye from his leader's immaturity.

"If you don't get up Cardin, we'll leave you alone in the room with Sky.-"

"-Hey! Don't talk about me as if I'm an object that terrifies people, because I'm not-"

"-Okay, okay! I'll get up!" The gargantuan student was quick to stop the silver-bluehead, even if it wasn't Cardin's true intention.

"Hmph, Cardin seems to think otherwise, _Scarface.-"_

"-Fuck you, you guys can be real assholes sometimes."

"And that hurts you, Sky? The last time I checked, you're a masochist, aren't you? So shouldn't you, I don't know, be _aroused_ by insults? Or maybe you're just so small that we can't even see your boner. Is that the case?" Dove's vulgar inquiry barely left him any time to dodge his partner's fist. The sound of the wall next to Bronzewing's bed breaking was more than enough to encourage his team to breakout in mild laughter, except for Sky.

"You know what? I'm gonna go get breakfast already, see you cock mongrels in the dining room." Lark's insult only intensified the amused guffawing of the rest of CRDL. Sky would have glowered at them even further, but he was hungry, _really_ hungry, and the spear wielder wanted to make sure that there were still waffles. "Thank Monty it's Friday... Don't forget your weapons either, guys."

Sky left the room after mumbling to himself, slamming the door behind him, which startled a few first-year students already in the hall. Lark gave all of them his biggest smile, promptly causing all of them to continue on with their day at a hastened pace. Sky just laughed at them with high volume, not caring if the students were able to hear his amusement of their fear.

With one glance, a person is able to tell that in one point of Sky's life, the corners of his lips were slit open, all the way up to the bottom of his ear lobes. The wounds of course were now closed up by thick scar tissue, making it look as if Lark was always smiling. Take away his armor and clothing, and one can see a violent story imprinted onto Sky's body, with scars from all kinds of weapons.

 _'Little bitches, that's what they all are.'_ Sky broke into a stream of mental slander, all the while he continued to traverse the halls of the dorm building. _'They all hate us, and they fear us._ ' Sky exited the structure, exposing his scarred face to the bright sphere above. Much to his discomfort, the high heat of this day was already causing his body to sweat under his armor and clothing.

"Ah, for fuck's sake. Gah, why couldn't we have a normal class-day? Fucking' exchange teams, fuck the Vytal Festival." Sky, in actuality, didn't mean what he said when referring to the Vytal Festival. The boy knew how important it is, and he practically believed it was the only reason why another Great War hasn't started at all. But he did despise the exchange teams, or at least the ones Sky has come to know for the last few months.

They hated him, and the rest of CRDL. Sky was sure that every single exchange student from Haven, Shade, and Atlas wanted to see him and his team die more than any other student in Beacon. They didn't hide their hatred either, and that just riled up CRDL something fierce; the four boys were always reminded of RWBY and JNPR whenever an exchange team glowered at them. Sky and his friends just loathed those two teams animosity, and the eight students felt the same towards CRDL. With there were now being more teams just like RWBY and JNPR, the four bullies just had more people and faunus to deal with until the Vytal Festival

The only thing stopping them from inflicting grievous bodily harm on the exchange teams was the fact that a certain woman in all of CRDL's lives would severely do the same on their bodies. They already had enough scars of the crime on them, Sky knew they didn't need any more.

"Ah, here we are, there better be- **_OOOPH!_** " Sky felt a large figure bump into him, effectively knocking both of them down onto the floor of the dining hall. Lark could practically _feel_ the silence fall over the morning crowd, along with a sense of desire; there a pang of discomfort on his bottom. "Who the hell?" But before he could continue forward with trying to get himself off by pain, Sky needed to know who it was he bumped into. The first thing he saw from looking up was a pair of familiar, long, brown, laced boot. _'Oh boy, could it be?-'_

"-Tch, watch where you're going, _Sky Lark._ " The voice with a tone of accomplishment confirmed that it was Scarlet David, of the Haven team SSSN. Sky couldn't help himself from grinning from hearing the redhead's annoyance. But, Sky felt angry, along with being joyful; he hated Scarlet more than anyone, as far as he knew. Sky also hated capes, just like the one Scarlet was wearing; the student's style itself was more than enough to infuriate Sky. And he knew just how to deal with it.

"Gah, I feel sorry for you, Scarlet, it must be a burden to be **_PMSing_** all day, everyday-" Sky stopped with he felt the bottom of the cutlass and flintlock-user's boot smash against his scarred face. A second later, the boy was able to feel the light stream of blood flow out of his left nostril and onto his lips. Soon his teeth were instead red, rather than white, and the feeling of arousal took hold; this is what Sky would strive for everyday, but rarely get.

"SCARELT!" His grin faltered when the voice rang through out the dining hall. Scarlet's partner, Neptune Vasilia rushed over to the two students, and Lark was able to tell by the Haven student's tone that he intended to stop the redhead. "Just let it go man, _he's_ not worth it."

"Mmph, yeah, I'm not worth it. And I'm sure all the girls you sleep with are worth the risk of getting an STD." The halberdier rose to his feet with the retort, wiping the blood off his face. He soon found his old strength reinforcing his smile of ecstasy when Neptune scowled at Sky this time

"That sounds like something a guy barely getting any would say-"

"-Ho damn, that's a low blow, Neptune. But hey, I believe in the saying _quality, over quantity._ I mean, hell, you can't get any lower than bumping uglies with that _Schnee_ girl."

"What?!" CRDL's masochist only smiled harder when he heard the agitated voice of Schnee Dust Company's heiress. The look of dried blood on skin and teeth on an expression of joy was more than enough to unnerve Scarlet and Neptune. But the two knew they couldn't let Sky see their feelings; it would give him the knowledge that they were somewhat scared of him.

Before Sky could even say anything, he felt the small hand of Weiss grip his left wrist with what he thought of as pitiful strength. She wasn't strong enough to make him turn around, so Sky did so willingly, prompting the pale girl to pull her hand back when she saw his bloodied smile. She felt exactly what the students from Haven were feeling, and just like them, Weiss couldn't show it either.

"What did you say about me?!-"

"-That hooking up with you is like hooking up with a five-lien street whore?" It came fast, and hard. Weiss slapped Sky with volume that echoed throughout the dining hall, followed by the joyful laughter of the bully. Today was going well for him, that's how Sky felt. " _Oh yeah baby,_ give it to me _gooood."_ As soon as the lewd begging ended, Sky, yet again, felt another hand grab his left wrist from behind. What made it different from Schnee's was that it belonged to either Neptune or Scarlet, they both had the strength required to pull Lark around.

He found out it was Neptune who grabbed him, and who also completely decked him right there at the spot. Sky's head slammed against the floor as more crimson shot out of his nose and mouth; it was all a pleasant surprise to him. Sky would have never guessed it'd be this easy to piss off Neptune, and that he was this violent also.

"HEY!" Unfortunately for Lark, he knew his fun was over when he heard the commanding voice of his leader boom at three students surrounding him. He looked over to his right, still lying on the ground, to see Cardin standing a few meters away from the three huntsmen and huntress-in-training.

Winchester had adorned his glorious armor, trimmed with gold and marked by a bird-symbol on his chest, along with his black pants, armor boots, black red-trimmed shirt, black leather gloves, and his black, hooded, leather poncho, lined a gold coloring. Cardin always covered his face with the hood, hiding it rather effectively from all of Beacon. Even when required to wear a uniform, Winchester would always wear his black poncho over it. Sky though of it depressingly, how Cardin always chose to hide his face, but that didn't make him any less intimidating though.

"What did I say about doing this kind of stuff, Sky?" Cardin incredulously asked his friend to recall his memory. But Cardin didn't wait for an answer, he just pulled Sky back up by his v-neck collar. The mace-wielder also took it upon himself to pull Sky away from Weiss, Neptune, and Scarlet while they all made an effort to burn a hole through the two bully's heads.

That was also when the rest of the students in the dining hall resumed to their normal, drama-free lives, taking Cardin's interference as a sign that the fight was over.

"Gah, you're always a buzzkill Cardin."

"Shut up you filthy masochist." The behemoth stopped when they reached a table with four trays stacked with breakfast, two on each side. Russel and Dove were already sitting next, as expected, so that left Cardin and Sky with the only free side. Lark was pushed down onto the seat with the tray stacked with waffles and syrup, along with a plastic fork and knife. "Eat your damn breakfast, we have half an hour until we're forced to go to to today's marathon of sparring."

Sky would have grumbled something disrespectful in response, but since Cardin was so considerate of getting Lark waffles, he decided to let his leader's interruption pass.

"Ya' know, Nora asked us a minute ago why you like waffles." Russel informed his scarred friend, before taking a bite out of his sausage and cheese sandwich.

"... Are you serious?"

"Yeah, we told her that we don't know why you like waffles. And she said the fact that you like waffles makes you a target of hers..."

"..."

"..."

"... Pfft, really? Whatever, like I'm scared of that pathetic, optimistic, pancake sympathizer."

"Damn, what's wrong with pancakes?"

"What's **_wrong_** with pancakes, Russel, is that they always absorb the syrup. Which turns them all soggy and... blegh. BUT, waffles don't absorb syrup as much as pancakes do, so they **_don't_** turn soggy." All three of Sky's allies took a few seconds to think about what their precious masochist said. None of them could poke any holes in his logic; pancakes do get soggy when they absorb too much syrup, and as far as they knew, no one liked soggy pancakes. But maybe Nora did, they weren't sure...

* * *

"So... you two sure taught that scumbag a lesson."

"Uh, Reese, I don't... think they really taught Sky anything." The tall, pinkhead spoke his mind out, prompting all seven of the other Haven exchange students to look at him, all waiting for Nadir to give his reason. "W-well, I mean... he's a masochist. So, it wasn't like you two were really hurting him."

"... Yeah, you're right. If anything, I guess we were encouraging him to be a douchebag." Neptune's reply was defeated, despite him not appearing as so. Scarlet would have said something as well, if only he could think of why they _were_ teaching Sky Lark a lesson in what being a bully brings him. But he definitely knew, no matter how hard he pondered, that he, Neptune, and also Weiss, weren't doing anything effective to knock Sky off his horse.

"His friends... they're not masochists."

"... Bolin, you're not suggesting we **_attack_** his friends, are you? A huntsmen would never do that."

"Oh, but bullying faunus, just because they're faunus, is? Is that something a hunter would do, Sage?" Yellow eyes narrowed at the obvious prejudice in Bolin's attitude. But Sage relaxed, reluctantly; Bolin's rhetoric was right. Hunters and huntresses weren't meant to be racist, but yet there was still a handful of them who'd rather see a faunus caged than given civil rights. "...No, that's what I thought.-"

"-Bolin, even though you're right, attacking... those scumbags would be unwise."

"What, why? Don't you have _faith_ in your team being capable of taking on anyone, Arslan?" Reese's sarcastic emphasis on 'faith' was more than enough to put her leader in a bad mood. She had issues with controlling her anger and Reese knew it; Arslan didn't know why her hoverboard-weapon-using friend had to try an provoke her.

" _Reese,_ if you ever took a good, long look at CRDL, you can obviously tell each member is seasoned, even if they're all first years."

"Tch, really? What makes you say that?"

"Well, Sun, you don't get scars like theirs from a damn puppy. Russel lost his left eye, and a majority of the left side of his face is scarred from a fire, probably due to third-degree burns, and now he wears an eyepatch. Sky... ugh, Monty knows what happened to that sick man. And Dove... you can clearly see he once took a bullet to his head, and _**somehow**_ survived. You don't get scars like those from a combat facility, especially in Vale. Wherever they grew up, life was most like hell on Remnant for them, and that turned them into... the bastards they are today."

No one even dared to talk after hearing Arslan's observation. It sounded understandable; the idea that all of CRDL having grown up in some sort of 'hell of Remnant' turned them into tough, not-to-be taken so lightly, scumbags wasn't far fetched. But then again, team SSSN nor BRNZ knew what each member of the most hated team in Beacon were capable of. For all they knew, Cardin, Sky, Russel, and Dove all could be weaklings, and it's just no one knows that all because of them barely being called on to spar.

"This match is over, team CFVY are the victors." Glynda Goodwitch declared, cutting right through the small silence that took hold of the eight Haven students, while the rest of Beacon and other exchange teams broke into applause for the second-year team's victory. Their opponent team appeared as if they just lost a match in the Vytal Festival, which they pretty much had. This whole class day was dedicated to teams sparring each other; gauging their skills and efficiency against other teams.

After the arena was cleared out of the two second-year teams, Professor Goodwitch entered the center of the area which the stands viewed.

"The next two teams up for the next spar are team CRDL..."

"I swear to God, Arslan, if you jinxed us.-"

"-Don't worry Bolin.-"

"-And team SSSN."

"WHOO! KICK THEIR ASSES GUYS!"

"... I hate you Reese." Neptune informed his hooded friend, who has just blasted into his and Scarlet's ears, much to their chagrin.

"Well, looks like you two get another chance to teach Sky a lesson." The leader of SSSN stated, even though he knew that it was nigh-impossible to teach the monstrous silver-bluehead anything with physical violence.

Meanwhile, with the four wrongdoers called to spar against the Haven team, they had already entered the arena with their weapons. They jumped off of the bleachers, and, unfortunately for Dove, he didn't anticipate them to be so high from the middle of the amphitheater. The end result was him falling face first onto the floor, spawning off a series of laughter from the students. Seeing one of CRDL injuring themselves was amusing to them as much as bullying faunus was appealing to Cardin.

"Aw fuck- goddamn it Dove! You're the biggest disappointment I've had the displeasure of leading."

" _Well I love you too, CARDIN!"_ Dove retorted back to the taller student, grabbing his short-sword off the ground and getting back onto his feet. A small blush covered his cheeks from all the laughter being directed to him.

"Well, looks like we have to wait for that monkey and his team to get here, so here's the plan.-"

"-Really? You came up with one that-"

"-Shut up Russel. Sky, you're going to take on the _man-whore._ " Albeit Cardin didn't use the boy's name, Sky was able to tell his leader was referring to Neptune.

"Oh yeeaah. It's going to feel so good."

"Ugh, Dove, you go up against Sun."

"Whatever." Dove replied, still bothered by his little incident.

"Russsel, you fight Scarlet."

"Gah, I can't stand that guy." The mohawk speedster gripped his dagger, squeezing hard enough to make it unhealthy for him to be doing so.

"None of us can stand that hardass. He's ju-"

"-Just like you Cardin, a _hardass."_ Sky's comment earned the masochist a look from his leader. Even if he couldn't see Cardin's face, Lark was able to tell the armored giant was giving him a dirty look beneath that black, red-lined, hood of his leather poncho.

"Well then... I'll be taking out that Sage guy."

"What should we do if we defeat our target?"

"Dove, you go help Russel with Scarlet if your finish off Sun. That goes for you too Russel, help Dove out if you beat Scarlet. Sky and I will help each other if we take our targets out."

"Speak of the devil... _sss._ " Russel prompted Cardin to look away from the brunette swordsman, seeing that SSSN had finally entered the arena, stopping at least two dozen feet away from CRDL themselves. All four of the Haven boys scowled at the four Beacon boys, each varying in degree of intensity. Scarlet was the one who glared with the most might.

"Are both teams ready to begin?" Professor Goodwitch received nothing but 'yes ma'am' from all eight of the hunters-in-training. It was slightly difficult to hear due to them almost being drowned out by all the cheering for team SSSN to beat CRDL, but Glynda managed to hear their confirmations. "Then you eight may begin!"

To everyone's surprise, Cardin was the first to go for his target, also reaching Sage at a speed all the students thought of being impossible for Cardin to pull off. It took the brute of a boy two seconds to close the distance and clock Sage right in his jaw, sending the tallest of SSSN flying back. Cardin chased after the launched hunter-trainee.

Sage's teammates couldn't do anything to help him either. They were about to, actually, but Sun, Scarlet, and Neptune found themselves being confronted By Dove, Russel, and Sky, respectively in that order.

CRDL was more aggressive than anyone in the amphitheater had ever seen before, it was unnatural. Usually whenever one of CRDL sparred, they fought defensively, except for Skyl. The dual-dagger-wielder always fought aggressively, and that was that. But something was inspiring them to behave violently.

Neptune was the one among his friends who got the short end of the stick in this situation; Sky was literally acting like a newborn Grimm this time. He had no care for his well-being whatsoever.

Sky was fighting like a madman, which a majority of Beacon students believed him to be. His thrusts, swings, and the occasional punch or kick barely had any technique in them at all, but it was no surprise; he always fought like that. But they were faster, and looked stronger that before. Neptune was forced to go on the defensive, which was soothingly easy for Sky, and frustrating for the other bluenette.

The first thing Sky did immediately after confronting the fake bluehead was merely thrust his halberd towards Neptune's face. The gunman had little to no time to dodge, but Neptune pulled it off with what he swore was the bottom blade's tip gently brush by his left ear. The taller boy of the two noticed Lark twist his halberd so that the axehead could be facing Neptune by its edge; and then Sky felt the sensation of his face's flesh being scorched.

Neptune shot his gun, right when he realized Sky was going to swing left. The blue energy splashed over the right side of Sky's head, emitting the sound of sizzling skin. Apparently, it also didn't bother Sky at all. Neptune assumed this was the case when the masochist still swung his spear, striking the tanned student's neck. SSSN's flirter grit his teeth as he rolled further to the left, using the force from the blow as momentum to as far away as possible from the lunatic of CRDL.

When stopping on his feet, Neptune brought his head and energy-projectile gun up to Sky's direction. Half of his face was most likely what Russel's once was when he lost his left eye. But that wasn't enough; Neptune continued to unload projectile after projectile onto Sky. He knew of the halberd user's semblance, and so did every other hunter and huntress-in-training. It was one of the two primary reason that Sky was barely using his aura for defensive purposes at all.

Lark was in pure ecstasy after the twelfth shot struck his forehead; at this point he could only assume all of his head was a gooey, black, texture of fire that only Hell could match. Sky wanted more, like the greedy pig he was, so he did whatever he could to force Neptune make every attempt to end their fight. He dashed forward with the large axeblade of his halberd aimed towards Neptune's neck, and could even hear the marksman swear in reaction to the increase of speed Sky now exhibited. Which was impressive, since Sky was able to feel his ears having been blown off after the fourth shot.

The tip would have torn right through the member of SSSN's throat, if it hadn't been for Neptune's aura protecting his adam's apple. But it still stung, even worst than a rapier wasp. Sky didn't stop there though; he pulled the firing pin on the shaft of his weapon, and smiled at the loud crack of a single bullet making an effort to penetrate Neptune's throat. But as expected by Sky, it deflected off from the boy's aura, and judging from Neptune's face, the pain was even worst than the axeblade.

The fake bluenette fell back after feeling the small, metallic, shell nearly give him a new orifice. He wasn't even given a single second of peace either before the thug of a student stomped the taller student's face. Neptune couldn't believe anything could surpass the suffering of taking a bullet to the throat, but apparently, Sky just disproved that notion.

He was giving himself a good mental lashing for hopping Sky up with nothing but pleasure that should have been pain. Neptune assumed it was the reason for Lark's sudden rise in overall power, and now he was showing that off in the form of shameful combat by attacking a downed opponent. Unfortunately, Vasilias knew there was nothing in the rules of sparring in Beacon that restricted from students fighting like common criminals, but it was frowned upon. The marksman also knew Sky didn't care about that at all, what with Neptune who believed was probably the ninth foot-stomp.

They just kept coming and coming, accelerating in speed and strength with hatred acting as a source of fuel. Neptune was beginning to suspect Sky of being a masochist _AND_ a sadist; a concept horrifying if it was being demonstrated by a normal human or faunus. But this was Sky, a human training to become a huntsmen. Neptune didn't even dare to say it, but if Lark graduates Beacon, he's going to make a fearsome, and successful hunter.

"SHIT- TIME OUT! _**TIME OUT!**_ " Neptune's breath hitched when Sky's foot stopped an inch or two away from the boy's already broken nose. The lighting of the arena returned to its usual state of lighting up the entire amphitheater.

"What the hell?" Sky wasn't pleased with the abrupt end to their spar with SSSN, but when he turned around, the halberd user was more than pleased that Glynda stopped it.

Dove was having an asthma attack; one that just dwarfed all of his previous ones. It was also the first one he had for the last six years. His lips and fingernails where practically indigo, and stuck out like a bunch of sore thumbs due to Dove's usual pinkish complexion turning pale as Weiss herself. His clothing underneath his brown armor was drenched with sweat, and the sound of immense wheezing and coughing, Sky didn't want to hear it again. None of it at all.

"Fuck! Dove, where's your inhaler!?" The way Cardin behaved was uncharacteristic of him, or to everyone in the amphitheater at least, suddenly speaking a horrified tone, like a father wanting to save his child. But he, along with Sky Dove, and Russel, all knew that it was because of this not occurring half a dozen years.

"Lo... locker..." And just like that, Russel broke into a sprint, disappearing down the corridor to the arena. It was obvious what he was going for.

"Shit, alright Dove." Their large, armor, poncho, and black glove-wearing leader plucked Bronzewing up into his arms, holding the wheezing student like a bride and running in the same direction of the dagger-user. The two left the arena filled with confusion, and surprisingly to Sky, worry, filled in the students and Goodwitch. He didn't take time to gaze at everyone's faces from seeing one of the most hated students suffer an asthma attack. He had to be there for Dove; Sky merely walked to the exit, grabbing the dropped sword of his friend. He could here Glynda declaring SSSN being the victors, but only due to the technicality of Bronzewing's misfortune interrupting the spar and forcing CRDL to leave the arena...

* * *

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"Was that the last one?"_

_"Yes... she was the last one."_

_"Ahhh, finally, it's like I have to do more and more everyday.-"_

_"-Which is wonderful; the more you bless, the closer we come to release."_

_"Yeah, yeah, I know... I know..."_

_"... How are your children doing?"_

_"Tch, those little shits are doing mediocre to good at fucking least. So far they've been excelling in combat though."_

_"Mmhp, that's good. They'll be able to defend themselves just fine when they graduate... Deacon, was it?"_

_"It's 'Beacon,' and that's only **if** they graduate. They still have to pass their other classes."_

_"I thought you told me the only thing Beacon and the... other, hunter academy's care about is a student's fighting capabilities."_

_"... Yeah. I fucking did, didn't I? That's... my mistake, I guess..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"Well, I guess I should let you know Cardin is blessing us, like you told him to keep on doing. I've been feeling more and more leave the cage, and enter our bright-"_

_"-I fucking get it. I think we should worry more whether or not those little bitches are caught..."_

_"..."_

_"... Why do you hate them?"_

_"Excuse me? What kind of fucking question is that?"_

_"Every time you came here with him, he'd always have a bruise or a cast. And the same for the second one when you brought him along, then the third, and the fourth. I simply wish to know why you hate those who you raise and take care of. I've actually been thinking if you really **did** care about them or-"_

_"-Hey, how about you stay our of my fucking business, okay? We have more important shit to be talking about."_

_"... Yes, you are... right, I assume..."_

_"..."_

_"... We haven't been confronting hunters and huntresses as much as last year, so we constantly improving our ability to stay hidden, until... you know."_

_"Hmph, good. That's the only thing I wish to hear, so... bye."_

_"W-WAIT!"_

_"What? What is it? What else could there possibly be that I should hear?"_

_"... I... there's... something. I do not know what it is, but... a war could possibly loom over the horizon."_

_"Tch, yeah, no shit. I've already been keeping you up on White Fang activity, and the Vytal Festival is coming up."_

_"Ah, and it's going to be?..."_

_"The fortieth."_

_"I see. But... NO, that's not what I meant to say- Today, Draco informed me of... a few refusing to join us."_

_"WHAT?"_

_"It is true, our savior, we approached them, and they say they follow another calling."_

_"E-Excuse me? Another calling? What the fuck does that mean, Draco?"_

_"He doesn't know, and I do not know either. But... we can hear it too, but we have no wish to follow it."_

_"Is it Cardin? If it is, then... fuck it, maybe they're just mistaking him for being different. The same thing will happen to them, no matter what."_

_"No, it's not your son. He's the same as you. This though, it's different. A... another woman, she is far from these four kingdoms, and she asks for hell to come here, in the nations of humans and faunus..."_

_"Shit, are you serious?"_

_"I'm afraid so, and she does not... offer blessings, like you and your son. No, she... she is of human descent, but also of us."_

_"... Do you think she's going to come here?"_

_"Without a doubt, our Goddess."_

_"Fuck... we're going to need more allies."_

_"They will fight her, the hunters and huntresses. And armies will follow them as well; we have them on our side, even if they are unaware of our existence."_

_"Hm, you're right, I guess."_

_"And, fortunately for us, her presence is even motivating more to come join us also. I can hear them coming."_

_"Well, isn't that fucking dandy?"_

_"Is it? I am unsure of what the right reaction may be..."_

_"No, I was... fuck it, never mind... I think I'm gonna go home now, it's two a.m., I've been doing this since eight a.m."_

_"Ah, I understand Ziz, you need your rest to move forward."_

_"Yeah, see you later."_

_"Oh, and remember to remind Cardin-"_

_"- Don't worry, I fucking know. Just... just keep me updated on that... **woman.** "_

_"I have nothing more important to do..."_


	2. No One to Blame...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two

**Chapter Two: No one to blame...  
**

* * *

_"What the fuck happened?! Why is Cardin crying like a little bitch?!"_

_"Ah, Ms. Winchester, it appears... something... unprecedented took place at least six hours ago."_

_"Something unprece-- WHAT? What the fuck does that mean Richard?!"_

_"Madam, control yourself, it has taken a toll on Little Cardin. I'm afraid your shouting won't help improve his current state of mind.-"_

_"- Well I'm sure my fist breaking his **fucking** nose will-"_

_"MS. WINCHESTER! So far, he has done nothing to put you in this foul mood of yours, so please, **CONTROL YOURSELF.** For the sake of your son..."_

_"..."_

_"... What happened?"_

_"... One... of his friends, Dove Bronzewing... we found him in his along with his father in their home. They were both... dead. Each had a bullet pierce right through their foreheads..."_

_"... Fuck... and Cardin heard about it?"  
_

_"Little Cardin was with me when we went over to Bronzewing's home. He... saw it."_

_"... Good, seeing something like that will help him deal with despair. He needed to learn how to cope with it and I had no idea of what to do to make him go through it."_

_"I'm sure he's been dealing with it ever since he was born."_

_"... You piece of shit, you're just in a sassy mood today, aren't you old man?"_

_"Sorry, I hope you can forgive me-"_

_"-Ah, fucking- forget about it. I can't say I don't deserve anything that happens to me anymore; I lost that right a long time ago..."_

_"..."_

_"... So, did Dove's father do it? Did he shoot that little shit in the head and offed himself after?"_

_"We aren't sure, Ms. Winchester, Dove won't tell us anything."_

_"Well no shit Sherlock, he's dead along with his old man."_

_"... I was about to get to the unprecedented part."_

_"And that is?"_

_"... Dove's still alive."_

_"Fuck, really? Shit, that little bastard is tougher than I thought. Wish Cardin was that tough, it'd be pretty fucking nice..."_

_"..."_

_"... Wait, so why the hell is Cardin crying then? Is it because he actually wanted Dove dead too?"_

_"No, I simply haven't informed him yet."_

_"What? Why?"_

_"He locked himself in the bunker, you know how soundproof that room is."_

_"Hmph, and where's Dove now?"_

_"He was brought to the hospital to have the bullet removed from his head."_

_"AND then he died, I assume."_

_"Oh no, he still survived. But he's still recovering from the event."_

_"... Okay."_

_"Okay?"_

_"Okay."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... I see, and you were... **helping** Dion, Ms. Winchester?"_

_"Yes, what else could make me leave for twelve hours, dipshit?"_

_"You wound me, madam."_

_"Ugh... sorry. I'm just fucking tired. I'm going to bed, if Cardin comes out of the bunker then put him to bed too."_

_"I'll see to it, Ms. Winchester."_

_"... Hm, actually, I change my mind. I'm going to break that door down..."_

* * *

"Gaaaah... Sky, if you don't stop poking me, I'm going to fucking kill you."

" _Pfffffft,_ that statement is living proof that your mentally challenged."

"I'm **serious** Sky, just let me sleep damnit. It's Sunday."

"Yeah, and we have to go pick up Dove from the medical building, remember?" Russel opened his eye in remembrance of what happened yesterday; it was without a doubt, the worst Friday of their lives. And Russel prayed that it stayed that way.

"Alright, I'll... get up." Thrush sat up in his bed, seeing that Sky was all ready, wearing his dark grey armor, black sweater and black pants. He also noticed how their room was missing their signature behemoth of team CRDL.

"Where's Cardin?"

"He left, and reminded me to go, with you, get Dove from the medical building. He said he'll get our breakfasts and meet us at our table in the dining hall."

"... And you decided letting him leave the room alone was a good idea?" Sky gave the green mohawk student a nod, to which Russel pinched the bridge of his nose with visible annoyance. "Dude, you know what happens when Cardin get angry and none of us are around to calm him down."

"Hey, you honestly think anyone's going to mess with him after what happened yesterday? People probably think he's sad or something and... _try_ to make him feel better. Probably by asking how Dove's doing."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. But you should also remember that you can piss Cardin off even if you don't insult." Sky bit his lip and turned his gaze to the floor of their dorm room, feeling stupid after hearing Russel's reason for letting their leader leave the room by himself. "AND, you know how he can be in the morning-"

"- I get it, I get it... just get read already. The faster we do this, the faster we can make sure Cardin doesn't try and kill, or maim... or... rape anyone. Or... God forbid cannibalize a student."

"I think people say rape is worst than murder or cannibalization. But... I don't think Cardin would rape anyone. The cannibal part though..."

"That's another reason to **get dress,** dumb fuck." Russel scowled at his friend for a second and gave him the one-finger salute, then proceeded to adorn himself of his green, sleeveless hoodie, light-green shirt, single-spike spaulder, grey pants, brown boots, and black eye-patch. The two ruffians proceeded to leave their room, and then their dorm building, passing by very few students due to it being a weekend; most were in Vale City.

The students they passed though either glared at them, like usual, whisper an insult when they passed by, or simply look at them with unexpected pity. And that mystified them both, but they also welcomed it. Russel and Sky guessed the reason for very few not glaring or insulting them was because of yesterday's events transpiring in front of practically every student at Beacon.

Thrush felt a twinge of anger at the thought that all it took for a few students to feel sorry for a member CRDL was for one of them to have a nearby-death experience. In Dove's case, it was his second. But Russel understood why no one would even dare feel sorrow for one of them before all that transpired yesterday in their spar with SSSN.

All four of them were callous, cruel, vile, and in Sky and Cardin's cases, idiots. Racist was another thought that came to Russel's mind, but he, Sky, and Dove knew that was exclusive to their mighty leader. But ever since the incident in Forever Falls, Winchester has focused less and less on tormenting faunus students, but still bullied the human attendees of Beacon on a daily-basis.

"Hey, we're here numbnuts." Russel snapped out of his pondering to see he and Sky were already standing in front of the door to Dove's medical room. Sky pushed the metal, rectangular slab forward, seeing their sword user was almost done dressing himself up with only having to don on his bronze armor, but stopped to turn at the door.

"Oh, hey guys... hows it going?"

"Good, good. Cardin told us to come get you, and to meet him in the dining hall for breakfast. How are... you doing?" Sky asked the gloomy swordsman, while Russel stood by with a soft frown and sorrowful eyes. Dove was obviously beating himself up over this.

"I'm fine..."

"..."

"..."

"... I'm sorry about what happened guys. I... I-"

"-Hey," Russel wasn't going to let Dove do this to himself, not in a million years, "it's not your fault man. You had no idea you were going to have an asthma attack, and neither did we. Those things just come up at random."

"But, I'm the reason we lost yesterday."

"We were winning though. If you looked up at the screen before Cardin called time out, you would've seen that Sky and our leader were nearly done with Neptune and Sage. While us, our auras, were still strong and regenerating, all thanks to you." Sky was actually surprised by hearing what Russel had to say. He didn't look up at the screen himself when he left the arena, so hearing that they were potentially close to beating one of the top teams from Haven was great news for him.

"I... it's just that... it's been so long. What if I have another one?"

"Well, first thing is that you start carrying your inhaler around from now on, okay?" Bronzewing nodded his head at Russel's command. Even if he wasn't their leader, the brunette knew his mohawk friend cared for his well-being. "Good. Now let's go, we shouldn't keep Cardin waiting all by himself." Dove would have asked him _"is that it?"_ , but he didn't. Dove knew it was a bad idea to leave Cardin alone, even if he was getting better at controlling his anger.

"Oh... hey, did you guys happen to put _Cory in the Council_ back into my locker?" Dove's question prompted a sigh of exhaustion to escape Sky's lips, with Russel chuckling at Lark feeling troubled. It was a rare sight to see Sky annoyed, so whenever any of his three friends saw the blue-silverhead irritated, they could barely contain themselves of their amusement. Except for Cardin, he was the master of hiding joy, but they were all sure he was just incapable of feeling any possible emotions.

"Yeah, I put _Cory in the Council_ back into your locker." Sky growled; he absolutely loathed the name Dove gave his sword.

" _Thank you,_ okay, I'm ready to go now." Dove stated like he was smuggest bastard in all of Remnant, having just finished inserting his left foot into its greave. The three ruffian-students left his room soon after, somewhat intent on meeting Cardin in the dining hall...

* * *

"Well, I got their trays filled with their favorite breakfasts," Cardin informed himself as he sat down at a table in the dining hall, "all I need to do now is... wait, I guess." Cardin stared down at his tray; it was practically smothered by noting but bacon and sausage. He wasn't in the mood for getting a waffle or pancake, it would've involved cutting them up into pieces and the mace wielder just wanted to barely work at all today.

He also wasn't in the mood to eat either, but Cardin did so anyways. He binge-devoured four strips of bacon and three sausages until he decided to take a little break before he finished off the tray he didn't want to even see this morning. Cardin pulled out his scroll and started to binge watch episodes of one of his favorite T.V., intending to binge watch them. But even then, the Winchester found himself not in the mood to watch one of his precious shows from television.

Cardin promised himself a lengthy while ago, that he'd protect his friends from anything that posed a serious threat to them. And he was always reminded of how he kept on breaking that promise whenever he'd hear Dove wheezing or coughing due to his asthma. And what happened on Friday made Cardin feel incredibly useless; he would always find himself wishing, and praying everyday for Bronzewing to not suffer an asthma attack. That was all he could do, along with making sure Dove always carried his inhaler around him from now on.

But other than that, Cardin was disappointed with himself for not always upholding his promise. Winchester believed the scars of his friends were proof of his breaking of the promise he never told them about.

"Hey... Cardin." The voice pulled the poncho and armor-wearing giant out of his gloomy stupor, and forcing him to look up at two silver eyes. Cardin just slaved over his body to do everything in it and his power not to hiss in disdain. He had no idea why, but Winchester always felt titan-like fury and fear whenever he looked at Ruby's eyes; Cardin was fighting back the urge to not use every swear word he knew of to drive off the young girl.

"What... what do you want?

"Oh... I just... wanted to see how you're doing." Winchester felt his chest almost drop; her voice had a tone he had never gotten used to hearing. One of a girl he never even befriended who felt concerned for him.

"I'm... fine. But, why do you ask?"

"You've been looking down lately, ever since what happened to... Dove, on Friday... Is he okay?"

"..."

"..."

"...Yeah, yeah, Dove's... **fine**." Cardin felt exhausted from the simple response, as if he just ran a marathon for a full week. He sat down his scroll on the table, which was when he noticed Ruby was actually sitting down already, across from him, looking like she was stuck in a cage with a lion. Winchester almost wanted to order the scythe-wielder to get back up, because she didn't ask for his permission to sit down. But threatened himself to bite his own tongue if he even started the sentence.

"That's good."

"Yeah... he's suppose to be leaving the medical building today. I told Sky and Russel to go get him; I'm just... waiting here for them..."

"... How are you doing?" Cardin almost wanted to tell her to piss off at that point.

"... Better than I should be." But he didn't. The face-hider felt that would be too mean, even for him, despite having done much worst. "I mean... it's just... Dove hasn't had an asthma attack for at least six years. The worse he ever experience ever since was just wheezing and coughing, and even then, I'd hear stuff like that twice a year. I don't even remember hearing Dove cough at all last year... but, just seeing him like that on Friday... it was his worst asthma attack ever so far. And... and I hope it stays that way. I don't even want to say that, it makes me think there's going to be more..."

It would be an understatement to say Ruby was shocked; she had no idea Cardin Winchester would be so open with how he's been feeling. But that wasn't what surprised the brunette with red tinge, instead it was how Cardin sounded like a broken parent. As if he was a father who just screwed up on protecting his only son. Rose was almost reminded of her father Taiyang, and her uncle Qrow from the bully's tone, but his mood just confused her.

"...Wow... you really care about Dove a lot."

"Heh, I care a lot about him, Russel, and Sky, even if they're all scumbag monsters of Remnant like me. We've been together for a long time, and have a lot in common too..."

"... Like... what?" Cardin stopped himself from blurting anything out; he had to remind himself of what's okay to say, and what's **not** okay to say. There was only one of the latter he needed to remember, so it wasn't challenging to remember what it is.

"Well... we were all born in the same year..."

"..."

"..."

"... Is... is that it?"

"Yeah... no..." Cardin actually hoped Ruby would leave after he stated one similarity, but he ridiculed himself for not giving the young student enough time to even react. "We all had a pretty shitty childhoods, we all want to become hunters, we also grew up on Disown. Oh, and-"

"WHOA! You guys grew up on Disown?!" Cardin would be lying to himself if he was surprised by the scythe-wielder's reaction. Albeit he hadn't told anyone at all about where he, Russel, Dove, and Sky were born and raised, the poncho-wearer did expect people to react in some sort of way similar to Ruby's.

"Yeah, we did, so?"

"So? Your home is the only prison island so far to be turned a vassal by a country! What was it like growing up on Disown?-"

"-I said we had fucked-up childhoods, didn't I?" The petite huntress-in-training called herself stupid in her mind for forgetting that. She could barely believe she just forgot Cardin saying that a few seconds ago. "Uh... sorry, I didn't mean to make... make you feel bad." Cardin was tempted to stop his apology right in the middle, but he felt like what he said was mean, a little too mean at least, to say to Ruby Rose.

He was not even sorry at all, he just said it because he made an actual promise with his brothers that they know about: to try to act kinder to the other students, even if he did not want to.

"Oh- no! It's okay; it's all my fault for forgetting what you said about your team's... time on Disown."

"... Thanks... well, anyways. Even if Disown is a vassal, it was, and still is pretty unlawful. And our... our... _leader_ always deals with the inhabitants who break the law with... pretty controversial methods, so she isn't very... kind either."

"Oh yeah... she's practically the reason why your home became a vassal of Vale in the first place, seventeen years ago." Winchester had never gotten used to hearing that. How she's primarily the reason why he and his friends are here in Beacon in the first place. Even if the prodigy sitting in front of him did not say that specifically, what Ruby just stated made him feel as if she instead said what he always heard whenever some talked about their leader that way. "It's crazy, how she was close to being nine-months pregnant... when she was sent to..."

The behemoth started to feel a bead of sweat roll-thunder down his left cheek. _'There's no way she can make the connection so quick, Ruby isn't intelligent enough to make it-'_

"Cardin... how old are you?"

"..."

"..."

"... Seventeen."

"... Holy... is... are you-"

" **-Ruby,** " Cardin blurted out; he knew it was too late to convince her he isn't Disown's next ruler. "You... please don't tell anyone that, pleas."

"... Whaaa?! You're really-"

"YES! I am her son, okay? But don't tell **anyone!** P-please, I beg of you!" It didn't take a genius to guess why Winchester was acting so timid about the subject; Ruby assumed his mother was the reason why Cardin is this way in the first place. He did just say his childhood was terrible, those only come around when you're either abused by your parents, relatives, or others. In the mace-wielders case though, his mother is the ruthless leader of Disown, so the prodigy girl believed it to be safe to assume she was the same to her own son. "If people find out... I... I don't-"

"-Don't... don't worry Cardin. I won't tell anyone about her." The Winchester boy visibly relaxed, with stretching emitting from him unbinding his gloved fists and his head raising up. Ruby wished she could see his face; she didn't prefer conversing with a student who always hides his face, or has at least been doing so for the pass majority of the semester.

"Thank you, Ruby. My... mom, she's a sensitive subject for me, and I'd prefer if the whole academy didn't know about her... You can tell anyone about the other stuff I talked about, but not **her.** " The contempt in his voice was all to familiar to Ruby's ears; Cardin always talked like this towards his victims, and Professor Oobleck as well. But hearing his rage when talking about his mother was confirming there to be bad blood between them.

"... Is she the reason why you hide your face? Did she hurt you?"

"... Heh, no... I hide my dace for a different reason. But I understand why you'd ask that; my mom is abusive. In fact, before I came here to Beacon with Russel, Dove, and Sky, she broke my nose for calling her old."

"What?!"

"Yeah, it happened during one of our spars. I told her she's slowing down, then addressed it being a sign of her old age. She got pissed and just decked me right after, it still hurts too." Cardin said, rubbing his nose to put emphasize on his statement.

"Jeez."

"Don't worry about me, she... she's done a lot worst before. I still like to think her abuse was... her way of preparing us for the outside world. Russel, Sky, Dove, and I..."

"... Wait... are the four of your brothers?" Cardin gave a loud snort in response, along with a brush of one of his gloved hands.

"No... Monty no. I thank him everyday for making me an only child for the first six years of my life. My mom just adopted the three of them when... well, why she adopted them is a pretty touchy subject, **_for_** them. But... I don't think I should tell you why; you're going to have to ask them yourself."

"Cardin, you know that your mom adopting Russel, Dove, and Sky, makes them your brothers. So-"

"-Shut up Ruby." Cardin cut her off, shoving one strip of bacon, whole, into his mouth soon after and breaking it up into bits with his teeth, soon swallowing the crisp meat-pieces. "Now, it's my turn to ask you a question. How much did your friends _beg_ you to not come over here?"

"... Did you just eat that strip of bacon in one bite?"

"Tch, answer the question Ruby. Or else I'm _eat you next~_ " Rose had no idea if he talking about eating her flesh, or a more private area. And because of that, she blushed and crumpled down a little from fear, and disgust. "Hey, hey, don't turn red like that. I was just kidding, I prefer pretty girls anyway." And just like that, Ruby's fear and embarrassment morphed into false anger; she knew he didn't really mean what he said. Hopefully.

"You know, I just have to scream _'ow'_ and they'll come over here."

"Who? The dust-addict? The girl who reads nothing but smut? Or your sister who you _play_ with every night?" That was when her anger turned genuine.

"What? You... you- don't talk about my friends that way! None of that is true!"

"Well, I know Schnee doesn't really snort dust. But Blake does read smut, I saw the cover of what she reads. And as for the last one... I always hear you moan her name at least once a month though the walls. Either you're fucking her, or you're touching yourself to her so..."

"... Maybe I should tell them about your mom.-"

"-You little bitch." Cardin rose out of his seat, slamming his palms onto the table and effectively breaking off fear-inducing chucks. Ruby realized how badly she messed up with taunting Cardin. "You wouldn't dare."

"Take back what you said.-"

"-I'll take back the first two, but not the last one..."

"..."

"..."

"... Fine," the little female speedster got out of her seat as well, and turned to see the rest of her team, along with JNPR, at the table she left; all of whom were looking right at her and Cardin's direction, "hey gu-" It was right when he heard the shout of rage from Yang Xiao Long that Cardin booked it, almost breaking down the doors to the dining hall in a dash and sprinting down the right hallway. He could here the yelling of dozens of students, all of whom the Winchester boy assumed were angry with for whatever he was planning on doing. He mentally thanked God for giving him speed that no giant in armor should ever be capable of.

"Gah- CARDIN! PUT ME DOWN!" Ruby started to vocalize her discomfort with whatever was happening, along with making an attempt to struggle out of his grasp. She cursed out loud for being so weak in terms of strength when compared to the gargantuan who snatched her away. Ruby could barely believe how fast he was either, and felt all hope of her friends, her sister Yang, slowly dissipate when she lost sight of them. Blake was the last of her team Ruby saw before losing sight; the fact that Cardin is faster than the cat faunus just demoralized Rose even further.

All the while Cardin ran for the sanctuary, which in this case is his team's dorm room, the mace-user pulled his scroll out and dialed Russel's scroll number. The device rang twice before the punk of a friend answered with his face filling the screen.

_"Cardin? Is something-"_

"-Russel, get to the room now."

"LET ME GO!"

_''Was... was that Ruby?"_

"Yes! I fucked up man! Where are you?!"

_"I just left the medical building with Sky an Dove-"_

"-Good, go to our room now! Don't waste any fucking time either! I'm serious!"

 _"Okay, got it man!"_ The boy's face flashed out, ending the call with his team's leader. The whole time the short conversation took up was practically smothered by Ruby's blasting begging for freedom of Cardin's hold, tempting him to just knock the girl out and take her to his room. But that would make this situation worst, and he knew it.

Fortunately for him, Cardin looked up after putting his scroll away in his right pocket to see their dorm building, celebrating briefly while Ruby was filled to the brim with dismay. How could things take a turn for the worst this severe?

The haste of the running boy grew ever more, wanting to reach his room, knowing he was closer than ever to temporary safety. Cardin reached his team's room in less than a minute, opening and closing their door in record time. The feeling of only a little tension came off of his shoulders; Cardin reached his destination, now he just had to deal with Ruby, wait for his team, and come up with a plan.

The first course of action he took was searching a three-by-three crate in a corner of his team's dorm room, while still holding onto Ruby, who at this point had given up of shouting for help and instead focused on struggling. Cardin would have told her how stupid she was for doing that, and that she should just use her energy for calling help. But he knew how that would make her presence known to every student in the building, and how she was stuck in an unfortunate predicament.

Cardin soon found what he was looking for: rope and duct tape. He threw the material onto his bed, and did so with Ruby as well. She gasped from the wind mildly being knocked out of her lungs. The petite girl wasn't left with any time to even realize what had just happened; Cardin flipped her onto her stomach and grabbed both of her wrists while sitting on top of her. Ruby felt her cheeks redden when she realized it was the large student himself who was the heavy restraint.

The Winchester boy got up from his bed when he finished his first task, tying Ruby's wrist to each other.

"W-What? Did you- GAH! D-Don't touch me there!" A chill crawled through her small frame when the sensation of cold leather and rope made contact with her ankles. The feeling of tanned animal rawhide was overwhelmed by rope however, and along with that was Ruby's knees tied up, effectively incapacitating her. Ruby soon witnessed Cardin picking up the duct tape, knowing what he was about to do with it. "Wait!"

"What?"

"D-Don't duct tape my mouth shut, p-please!"

"Are you serious? I have to do it or else you'll be shouting; we can't have none of that now can we?"

"But, but... I-I'm a mouth breather! If you duct tape my mouth, I'll suffocate!-"

"-Bullshit, you are not a mouth breather. Why are you so troubled by the idea of me duct taping your mouth shut? It should be this, _**this situation,**_ that bothers you. I'm unsettled by what's happening right now-"

"-Excuse me? _You're_ unsettled? I'm the one who was tied up by a bully who always hides his face and is currently being held hostage in his room, by him, on his bed, that... smells like beef jerky. _I'M THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE UNSETTLED-"_

"-Shhhhh..." Cardin hushed the disturbed girl, placing a finger on her lips. Ruby's response was to bite the finger through the black leather that hid it from all of reality. But instead of feeling covered flesh, Rose felt bone that was sharpened, causing her to release Cardin's finger from her mouth in fright.

"W-W-What the?! What's wrong with your finger?"

"Nothing, now accept the fact that I'm going to duct tape your mouth shut. Or don't, it doesn't bother me." The son of Disown's leader informed Ruby, pulling off a strip of silver big enough to cover his victim's mouth. Instinctively, however, Ruby shoved her face into Cardin's pillow in vein hope of it stopping him from taping her silent. She quickly raised her head up, gasping, due to the smell of beef jerky being too much for the leader of RWBY to bare. "Now that's not nice. You might as well tell me I smell bad."

"I-It's not that! It's like you're pillow is stuffed with jerky!-"

_**CLICK** _

Cardin instinctively went for his mace, grabbing the blunt weapon in his left hand and facing the door to the dorm room, prepared to smite whoever it was that unlocked the door. He fell back on that intention though; it was just Dove, Sky, and Russel, with the latter shutting the door behind them. All three of the huntsmen-trainees seemed surprised with their own touch; Dove was confused, Russel was angry, and Sky was perverse.

"What the hell Cardin?! What is this?!"

"What does it look like?-"

"-Why the hell is Ruby Rose tied up on your bed?!"

"Isn't it obvious Russel? Cardin has a thing for bondage. Don't worry, we'll give you two some privacy." Sky's sly comment earned his two glares from his leader and Russel, while Dove remained exactly the same, and with Ruby's face turning beet red.

"We... she... I..."

"Fucking- whatever." Thrush threw his hands in the air, already tired and fully agitated from Cardin's antics. He soon grabbed his right-hand-dagger, Tango, and started cut the rope that held Ruby prisoner, much to Cardin's chagrin. " **Hey-** "

"- Don't ' _hey'_ me, Cardin. I have no idea why you took Ruby hostage, but whatever the reason is, it's probably just as moronic as you are." The insult really got to Cardin. Not because Russel called him an idiot, but because he called his reason stupid, irrational, idiotic.

"... She threatened to tell her friends about mother..." Russel stopped half-way through with the rope that held Ruby's wrists together, staring at his leader in disbelief, then back at RWBY's leader. He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance at Cardin's thinking, got up from his bed with Tango next to Rose, and clocked his leader right in the face, as hard as the shorter boy was capable of.

Ruby couldn't tell who was in more pain, since Cardin rubbed his face under his hood, which was expected, and Russel shook his right hand like he just punched a stone wall. Both were bleeding, Cardin less than the mohawk speedster, but Russel was the first to recover.

"That is the shittiest reason to kidnap someone Cardin! I just... **FUCK!** " The eyepatch-wearing boy returned to releasing Ruby, mumbling about how much of an idiot his leader is, while the Winchester seemed to have finally recovered. Dove and Sky both were standing near the door, barely looking shocked at all from what they saw; all four of them were used to emotional turmoil like this.

_**KNOCK-KNOCK** _

"Oh..." Dove trailed off as he looked through the glass eye-hole of their dorm room door, pulling away only after a few seconds. "It's the rest of RWBY and JNPR, they look _**pissed**_. Especially Yang."

"Shit." Was all Russel had to say to the news, soon after finishing up on the rope Cardin tied around Ruby's feet, freeing the petite leader.

"What are we going to do?" Sky inquired, picking his halberd while asking so. Dove also grabbed his weapon, and Cardin already had his in his left hand. Russel was even tempted to retrieve his other dagger, Lien.

"I'll deal with this." Cardin spoke up, approaching Ruby. He loomed over the shorter girl, completely dwarfing her and blocking the room's only source of light from her. The first-year could swear she sees tears rolling down the boy's neck. "I started this mess, it's all my fault. So I'll finish it myself." Came the callous reason from his hidden lips. Cardin lumbered over to their door, which endure another series of knocks more violent than they needed to be. Ruby followed right behind him. "I'm sorry for doing this to you... guys, don't open the door, no matter what you hear."

Cardin opened the door enough for him to pass through, letting Ruby go out first and him following suit. The silence in CRDL's room was all too comfortable for Sky, Dove, and Russel. They knew three things were most likely going to happen from experience. Either Cardin was going to be beaten, or get off scot-free, or fight. But all of them were positive that he was not getting off scot-free, so that option is voided.

What started was Yang yelling at Cardin 'what the hell is wrong with him', followed by him saying 'sorry.' Silence took over once again for only a moment, and was then replaced with something being slammed up against the wall, along with shouts pleading for the attacker to stop. The bashing did stop, but it was followed by the grunts and blasts of an individual being punched, and judging from how low the voice was, the three members of CRDL were able to deduce that Cardin was taking a beating.

"YANG STOP!" It was at that point the assault stopped, giving silence total control of the situation once more. Sky reached for the door to see what's been happening, but his partner stopped the masochist, mouthing a 'don't' towards Sky. A multitude of footsteps breached the walls of the dorm room, fading into nothingness, and proceeded by the door opening. There was blood running down Cardin's neck, but not one of his friends worried for him.

"Welp, the situation is taken care of... who want's lunch?"

"Of course you'd ask a question like that after getting your ass kicked.-"

"-Hey, I let Yang kick my ass, okay?"

"Whatever." Dove replied, sounding as if he could barely care about Cardin's inquiry. "Is it even time for lunch?"

"I don't know, we have a damn clock set up, don't we?"

"Wow, does getting your ass whooped turn you into a _sassy_ fuck, Cardin?" Winchester was fighting off the urge- with a stick- to dropkick Sky's pretty ugly scarred face.

"Oh, it is lunch time." Russel exclaimed in a quickie, putting his daggers back into their sheathes and getting up from his bed. "Yeah, I think I can go for lunch. We didn't get to eat any breakfast after all. I was actually looking forward to that egg-sausage sandwich today."

"Whatever." Dove replied, now not even caring about Russel's desires...

"HEY!"

* * *

_"What the hell is going on here?"  
_

_"Ziz, ma'am, we caught this faunus stealing four loafs of bread and three packs of water from this man's shop. Says his reason for it was because he has a starving family back at home, and that the shopkeeper in this town is overpricing his food."_

_"Hm... sir, how much does a loaf of bread cost in your shop?"_

_"Two lien.-"_

_"-He's lying! That bastard charges ten lien for a damn loaf!-"_

_"-DID I SAY YOU CAN SPEAK, PILGRIM?"_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... Ma'am, I... I think you meant to say peasant."_

_"What?"_

_"P-pilgrim's are people who wander around, looking for a home or something like that. A... a peasant is a person of low social status."_

_"... Fuck, you're right... Well, I think he gets the idea."_

_"Okay... oh, and he's right, this shopkeeper is charging ten lien for a single loaf of bread. He's also charging crackers for seven lien per box of four stacks, water for ten lien per package of six, twenty lien for each bag of jerky."_

_"Fucking shit, serious? Sir, either you lower your prices to a reasonable amount, or we'll have you executed for hoarding."_

_"WHAT!?"_

_"... Okay, not hoarding, my bad. But still, you're overpricing food, so lower your prices to an acceptable degree, or... well I won't execute you, but the punishment will be severe."_

_"Are you serious? You're siding with this filthy cricket-kisser?!"_

_"Cricket kisser? That's a new one... now lower your fucking prices."_

_"But-"_

_"-Lower. Your. Prices. Or you'll be fired for fraud and replaced by a Vale agent."_

_"... Ma'am, Vale agent's aren't suppose to be used to replace an empty position of a common job. Also, we don't have any Vale agents, the council doesn't provide us with any."_

_"... Fuck... fine, I-"_

_"ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT, I'll do it. Just... just stop being an... ignoramus..."_

_"... What's... an ignoramus?"_

_"Ma'am, it's... a stupid or ignorant person..."_

_"... I guess I can be a little ignorant from time-to-time..."_

_" **OOOOFFFH!** "_

_"But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate someone insulting me because of it. You just bought yourself a year in the Disowned prison for slander."_

_"What?- **CAAAGGGH!** "_

_"Sure-Shank, make sure this shop keep is run by another, more reasonable, merchant."_

_"Yes ma'am."_

_"And you, faunus you're free to keep the food you... stole."_

_"... T-Thank you, Baroness Ziz.-"_

_"-But, you must give me something in return. If you don't, you'll be imprisoned for three months, and the bread and water will be returned to the grocer."_

_"O-Oh... a-a-and what is it that you w-wish for, Baroness?"_

_"... I want your tail."_

_"What?!"_

_"Your tail, cat, I want it. We'll have it amputated, and properly treated. And you'll get to keep the food you and your family so desperately needs..."_

_"..."_

_"... You'll also be offered a job for doing it, you know that right?"_

_"...You're a monster."_

_"Hm... if you don't give me your tail now, you'll be imprisoned for a year for slander as well, albeit I do know I'm a monster."_

_"..."_

_"Well, what's it going to be, you filthy animal? You're tail, or you're family? Monty knows what's going to happen to them if you're imprisoned for a whole year."_

_"... Cut it off..."_

_"Excellent choice, though I don't think you know how bad this is going to be..."_


	3. In A World That Keeps On Pushing Me Around

_"Hey Rus- whoa cool! You got an eye patch?! Awesome! Can I wear it?"_

_"No, Cardin, you dummy, you can't wear it..."_

_"..."_

_"... Well, you can, if Russel gives you permission. But he has to wear it now for the rest of his life, so I think he doesn't want to share it with a dirty boy like you."_

_"But... why does he have to wear it?"_

_"Fucking- he lost an eye from his burns, that's why. And his shit parents too, like they mattered anyways"_

_"... Bur... why does he need to cover it?" And his p-"_

_"-You little... well, that's a good question actually."_

_"It's needed so that little Thrush won't get any unwanted attention, Cardin, that's why."_

_"Thank you, Richard."_

_"... But wouldn't wearing an eye patch still make people stare at him?"_

_"... Well, yes..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... Welllll, if you're done asking questions, Cardin, then mommy has to go deal with some craptastic political issues now. But today, Richard has a special treat for you and your friends today."_

_"Really? What is it?!"_

_"Today, little Winchester, I'll be taking you and your friends to the aquarium today."_

_"Ugh, I fucking forgot we wasted money on that shit. So it finally opened?"_

_"Yes, Ziz, it opened **six** months ago..."_

_"... Okay? You say that like as if it's important or something."_

_"I'm just shocked that you didn't even know it had be finished for such a long time."_

_"... Welp, I don't give a shit. Thank you for wasting my time."_

_"It's not like your 'time' on this world is important to begin with."_

_"Yeah, say whatever you think will get me to end your miserable, fucking, shit-spewing life soon. But it ain't ever gonna happen, ta-ta."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"Richard? Did she hurt your feelings?"_

_"Hm? Oh- no, that's just what good friends to sometimes. If you're so close with a friend, you both may end up communicating to each other with rather than with proper, sane sentences."_

_"Oh..."_

_"Now then, Russel, wipe those tears from you face with this, and we shall get Dove and Sky. Then we may go to the aquarium..."_

* * *

"Cardin..."

"..."

"Mister Winchester."

"..."

"... Cardin!"

A rather loud thud from Oobleck slamming both his hands down in front of a young man who could quite frankly snap his slim jim-like body in half, did little to startle Cardin while other students in the class were taken by surprise. However it did wake him up, like the professor wanted, with the hooded boy raising his head until Oobleck could see the spot where Cardin's eyes would be if they weren't hidden. It infuriated the professor that Cardin has been wearing that crusty, black poncho, mostly because of how it smells like rotten meat, with it being unbelievably strong enough to always stink up his whole lecture room, and it has been like this ever since he came to Beacon. How Cardin, or the rest of his team, could endure the stench ever since then, Oobleck did not know.

"Mister Winchester, this class is meant to teach you the recorded history Remnant, with the details of decisions made by significant individuals for students to absorb and learn from, so that they may have better judgement when making difficult choices. What it's **not** meant for is you to use as free time to nap." Cardin found himself almost legitimately breaking Oobleck in half, just for waking him up.

Nothing was actually going to stop him either from doing it, except for him burping, which shot up bile into his throat, causing him to gag and accidentally bite down onto his tongue with sharpened pearly-whites. It prompted him to press a gloved-hand up to his mouth to stop blood from flowing down his chin and neck, but the smell was not stopped so easily, and instead spread about the whole lecture hall, causing every single student and the professor to reel in disgust from the overwhelming force of stench. Cardin felt no embarrassment however, rather he instead started to softly chuckle.

"Ugh- Mister Winchester, I... forget it. Just-just pay attention for the rest of the class, please." Bartholomew stated, now being deflated of his anger, instead taking pity on the young man. Others though were of course disgusted, like Blake who was dangerously close to Cardin, literally sitting next to him, since they were the last two to come in. She quietly uttered "filthy pig" under her breath, being followed by Carding looking over and staring right at her beneath his leather hood, which somewhat disturbed the faunus, for was he looking at her because he was somehow able to hear her? Or was it just because he heated her?

It was the first option, being confirmed when Cardin said: "Say that again, and this little piggy will rip your face, and then shove buttsauce down your throat." No one but Blake heard the threat, since they were still recovering from Cardin's mouth farting. He was successful in slightly scaring the loner RWBY, since it confirmed he was able to hear her, but it also just mystified her from his usage of the word "buttsauce."

Cardin turned back at Oobleck though, leaving Blake to her own unnerved thoughts as Oobleck resumed with today's lesson.

"Now, as we were discussing, Disown had been operating successfully ever since it opened for usage by the four kingdoms, remaining primarily under Vale's control for 82 years until the prisoners revolted, being led by who...?" This was why Cardin had actually fallen asleep in the first place. He already knows almost all of the history there is to Disown, along with knowing everything there is to know about every type of grimm that lives in their world, and how to fight. These are essentially the three things Cardin excels at than most of the other students.

"Yes, Dove."

"Once-former general, Lagune, and the island's current leader, Ziz."

"Correct, Mister Bronzewing. Immediately after the Faunas Rights Revolution, Lagune was stripped of his position as general and dishonorably discharged, leading to him living a life of criminal activity until he was apprehended and sent to Disown. While that all happened, Ziz, who actually fought under Lagune's command during the Faunas Rights Revolution, returned to huntress duties until she was arrested after massacring a platoon of Atlesian 34 soldiers and six huntsmen while they were hunting grimm, thus being sent to Disown not long after Lagune's sentence, all the while being pregnant. About eleven months after her sente- oh, yes Nora?"

"Why did she kill all of those people?" That was question Cardin could answer, but he knew no one would believe him, which would be great anyhow. He burped once more before Oobleck answered Nora, though this was was more silent, but also pushed up more bile the last one. Yet he managed to keep the burning liquid down.

"Ah, well, Ziz never gave a reason for her actions during her trial, instead choosing to remain silent for every question asked. To this day, she has still given no reason for why she killed so many people, but it was discovered that she had indeed affiliated in more criminal activity with Lagune before his arrest, so it wasn't the first time she broke any laws or statutes. Anyways, after spending eleven months of planning and preparing with Lagune, while also giving birth to her child, they started a small-scale riot that eventually grew into a full-grown takeover of Disown, killing over 200 prison guards while taking the rest hostage, effectively starting the War for Disown. This soon led to Atlas sending over 600 paratroopers only to be slaughtered with no survivors. In response, Vale, Mistral and Vacuo sent in 400 huntsmen to assist with a second wave of Atlesian soldiers, numbering at over 5,430 men and women. But even then Lagune and Ziz were able to drive them out with the prisoners and grimm, which were believed to have been intentionally led into war zones and camps to deal with the soldiers and huntsmen."

Cardin let out a very meek "heh," barely being heard by anyone, save for only Blake, unintentionally making her think Cardin found humor in grimm killing humans and faunas alike. Another burp, again silent like the previous belch, came out of Cardin, now blowing up bile that almost reached his mouth. Yet again though, he managed to keep it down as his eyes started to water and his teeth snared in a grimace.

"This would be the last time we send in bodies to quell the rebellion, since the war ended when Lagune, of all people, would end up sending a message to the four kingdoms, stating that they will end the war if they are given independence. This would end up opening negotiations between the four kingdoms and Disown, resulting with the prison island becoming a vassal for Vale, providing the kingdom primarily with precious metals and huntsmen-in-training. This would end the war only after a month of its inception, with 2,741 soldiers, 3,174 inmates, and 221 of the huntsmen dead, and Lagune dying three days later from his wounds, leaving Ziz to become the leader of Disown for the last seventeen years under controversial ruling, which we will get into-"

Cardin interrupted Oobleck when he pushed his notebook aside to puke out a grotesque, black, chunky liquid from his mouth, smothering the long desk in front of him and spilling near the students sitting in the front row beneath him, with most of it coating Velvet before she could react and jump out of her seat. It took a second for every other student to see what happened before the smell could assault their nostrils with a stench similar to that of his poncho, combined with sewage and chlorine. They reeled further than before from the aroma, gagging and pinching their noses, while Nora just broke out in laughter and Velvet uncharacteristically swearing like a sailor; the rest of his team though merely shook their heads, looking at their leader groaning in nausea and the bile barely steaming.

"Oh Cardin, not again." Professor Oobleck said, exasperated with what was the second time Cardin vomited in his class. Conveniently however, this happened right when the bell to excuse the students for lunch, so Cardin, wearily, took his notebook, rose up from his seat, and went for the door. "Wait- Cardin!" He ignored Oobleck and left the lecture hall, prompting Russel, Sky and Dove to follow-in-suit soon after. "Now hold you three- hey!" Oobleck was shunned has they walked pass, leaving the room and finding Cardin not too far away, walking among other student heading for the dining hall.

Managing to catch up to him, Dove was the first to speak up, saying: "Dude, can you not embarrass us for once?"

" _ **Oh, I'm sorry, Dove,**_ you're embarrassed? Really? Cause I'm not, I love throwing-up during a class. I love it when those bastards insist I keep on eating even though I'm already full. If I could, I would love throw-up in class everyday, alongwithhavingsextooIguess-"

"-Okay, okay, yeah, I get it. It's just that... you can always say no them. 'No' is an actual word that was created for the situations like what you go through on nights like-"

"-Shut up Dove." The Winchester callously cut him off, getting a loud huff from Bronzewing, clenching his hands as they kept on walking. "... Sorry, It's just that eating makes me stronger, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I 'member."

"Yeah," Russel started, "but it's just that... Cardin, you couldn't like ask to go to the bathroom and puke in a toilet instead."

"Fucking- do you think Oobleck would let me go to the bathroom and miss the rest of the lecture after waking me up? He'd probably rather die- which I would love to help him with- than let me go."

"..."

"... How would you help him with dying?" Sky inquired.

"I'd probably stab him in the eye with my cock like that one guy in that movie... what was it? A Solitas Film?" All the students who were walking near CRDL looked at their leader like he was a psychopath, which he was of course.

"... Okay Cardin," spoke Dove, "don't talk until we reach the cafeteria."

"M'kay." Cardin replied, staying silent just like he was told, walking alongside his adopted brothers until they reached the dining hall, grabbed their trays, got in line for food, stopped Cardin from getting into a fight, topped their trays with much foodstuff, and took their seats at a table, chowing down as more and more students filled the dining hall, including a disgruntled Velvet who immediately glared at Cardin, but neither he or his team noticed her since the were too busy with devouring their lunches. There was one person who managed to catch Cardin attention though, Ruby.

She came in all by herself, got her food and sat alone, since none of her friends were nearby. To Cardin, this was the perfect time to approach her and give a proper apology.

"Wait here, guys, I gotta do something."

"Okay, bye." Russel stated.

"... You're not going to ask me what I'm doing?"

"Well, we could ask you where you're going, but... does it matter anymore? There's like three other huntsmen academies we can go to."

"... Why do you think I'm gonna do something that'll get us expelled?"

"Cause, well... ya know... fuck it..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... I'm just going to give Ruby a better apology."

"Whatever, I don't care. Just don't kill her by stabbing her in the eye with your dick."

"..." Cardin walked away without saying a word, leaving behind Russel, and Dove and Sky who were laughing like clowns from Thrush's mockery. They grew distant as he approached Ruby, who sat in ignorance of his presence, busied with watching a video on her scroll, until he took a seat across from her, almost startling her. But she did not run, instead choosing to take her headphones off and looking Cardin right where is eyes would be if they weren't hidden, and again, Cardin could feel some irritation from having those gray eyes of hers looking right at him, but it was much more faint than it was on the day he kidnapped her.

"Hey Ruby."

"Hi..."

"... I'm sorry for what I did, I-I just-"

"-You already apologized to me."

"That one was terrible though. I didn't get to say what I wanted before your big sister attacked me."

"Oh, yeah..."

"Ruby, I didn't want to do what I did to you, it wasn't the right thing to do, but I did it anyways. It was just..." Cardin one his hand up against his hooded head, scratching leather-on-leather; he found himself beginning to regret doing this, while Ruby could see how much stress Cardin was exhibiting at this moment. "... stupid, I don't know. Maybe it was my mother's side acting out or not, I don't know, but I just want you to know that I'm sorry..."

"... And I accept your apology." Surprisingly, Cardin smiled with no sadistic nature, feeling some weight lift off his shoulders.

"So we're cool?"

"... Well, no... I mean you did kidnap me."

"... What if I make you cookies, will that make it better." Cardin asked, remembering how much of a pig Ruby can act whenever she eats cookies."

"... _Maybe._ "

"Cool. Oh, and uh... do you still promise not to tell anyone else about who my mom is, right?"

"... Yeah, I promise."

"Yay-"

"-Hey jackass." Cardin hissed on instinct when hearing the voice cut off Ruby, recognizing it as being a friend of one of his many victims during his active time as being a bully, which he still kind of does.

He got up and turned heel to see Coco, glowering at him behind her shades.

"Something troubling you, gal-pal?"

"Fucking cut the shit, why the hell did you puke on Velvet?!" The fashionista aggressively inquired, taking a step closer to Cardin as students around them went silent, while Ruby, Russel, Dove and Sky watched, worrying for both of their well-beings.

"Ummmm... ooooohhh, yeaaah... I see. Well, you see, I ate too much candy last night an-

"-That's so bullshit. Whatever you ate last night ended up burning her uniform and skin, asshole."

"... Oooohhh, well, it doesn't really matter what I ate. What does is that you probably want me to say sorry, or some stupid shit like that, I dunno."

"You know what?" Coco incredulously asked, taking another step towards Cardin.

"What?" And he took a step forward, closing the distance between them as he looked down on her, slightly snaring his teeth at her.

"I have fucking had it with your shit."

" _ **Oh, okay,**_ and what do you mean by that, bitch?"

"The damn bigotry, fucking racisim, you constant bullying-"

"-Bullying, fucking-- I've barely done that ever since I came back from the fucking field trip, you little duck-face, shit-eating, _cock-sucking **runt!**_ " Cardin shoved her back as he spoke those words, prompting the leader of CFVY take a swing at the behemoth of a human, coking him directly in his half-covered face.

But Cardin showed no visible reaction at all, with him not even staggering an inch. All that happened was a little blood streaming out of his left nostril, and a grin that let his tongue come out to lick it up.

"You want to know something, **Coco**? I fucking sick of students here treating me and my team like shit ever since what happened at Forever Fall. Everyone calling us pussies, calling us cowards, thinking we're the weakest first-year students at this shithole of an academy. Even when we were kicking SSSN's asses, you all still think we're pathetic. Well let me say that enough is e- **fucking** -nough. Today in combat class, I'm going to show everyone how fucking pathetic you are."

Cardin didn't wait for a response, he just walked pass here, bumping hard into her shoulder, and went for his table where his brothers waited, feeling unsure of Cardin decisions while the rest of students, save for Ruby, couldn't wait to see what they hoped would be a beautiful humiliation for Cardin.

"Cardin-"

"-What?" He snarled at Russel, only to be met with the little speedster blanching when seeing his leader's eyes, looking as feral as his mother's. "What?! What the fuck do you want?"

"..."

"Well?"

"... Just... just make sure you destroy her." The Winchester's face beamed with sinister joy, thinking about which way he should hurt her. "Cardin, Cardin."

"What?"

"But don't take it too far, okay? In all actuality, I'm pretty sure Ziz isn't above killing her own children if they're expelled from Beacon."

"Pfft, she won't kill us... or me at least, since I'm more important than you guys are."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... Why you bully us, man?" Sky asked.

And Cardin replied, "Because you guys aren't human beings."

The four Disown hunters-in-training sat in silence for the rest of the lunch period, eating and drinking as more and students filled the building until the bell shook Beacon's campus, making CRDL get up, without picking up their trays, and left for the amphitheater, being caught among a sea student heading in the same direction, with some heckling Cardin about how he's going to get his rear-end handed handed to him on a silver platter, or Coco's going to mop the floor with him. One even told him to be prepared to be emasculated.

He then proceeded to emasculate said-student by kicking him in the face, effectively breaking his nose, busting his lip, knocking three teeth out, and shattering both of his orbital sockets, right when they were outside the amphitheater. No one tried to fight him after doing that, instead they went submissive and got out of the brute's way when he entered the interior of the building. The team of young ruffians took their seats, except for Cardin, who instead approached Goodwitch, who quite frankly actually felt a bit irritation when she started to smell the familiar musk of the young man.

She looked up from her scroll to see Cardin, standing before her, asking: "Mrs. Goodwitch, I uh... would like to request you to let me fight Coco Adel today." The blond professor should have been surprised by hearing such a request in the first place. A first-year student asking to spar against a second-year almost never happens due to almost all first-years believing they will surely lose. However, this was Cardin Winchester, a human that Goodwitch has seen dislocate his arm once during a spar, only to relocate it in the middle of said-spar and proceed with beating his opponent, so she understand if Cardin feels confident in his ability.

But she still asked: "And why do you wish to spar against Miss Adel, Cardin?"

"She disrespected me during the lunch period today, so I want to teach her, and _every_ other student, a lesson in pain about what happens you treat me or my brothers with disrespect."

"... Cardin..."

"What?"

"I worry for you sometimes, do you know that?" Cardin shrugged his shoulders as he shook his head. "Well, either way, I want you to know that even though I appreciate it that you're coming to me for once to settle a dispute with a spar rather than with a brawl, that there are still other ways to end disagreements that don't involve throwing fists..."

"... My mom wouldn't like you." Now it was Glynda's turn shake her head, sighing.s

"Yes, well, I believe she hasn't liked me ever since we met in the first place..."

"..."

"... Okay Mister Winchester, I'll grant you your request."

"Nice." Was all Cardin said, awkwardly standing there for one more second before leaving and heading back for his teammates.

"... Tch, what have you created, Ziz?" Glynda asked to herself quietly, resuming back to working on her scroll, waiting there for the bell as the rest of the students filled the amphitheater, filling the building with more and more commotion until the ringing of the bell hushed down that crowd of students enough for the professor to start speaking. "Today, class, as you know, is our hand-to-hand combat day, so there will be no usage of your weapons for the spars today."

"Oh that's _niiice._ " Cardin whispered.

Sky quietly asked, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, no no-- there's nothing wrong.-"

"-Other than you getting to touch a girl for the first time?" A few students around them chuckled.

"..." Cardin would have insulted Sky back, but he decided to fake sadness by frowning, slumping his shoulders as his sighed. But he was right with there being nothing wrong. Cardin would actually be writhing with joy right now, salivating at the thought of getting to break Coco with nothing but fist, kicks, and headbutts, and maybe biting too.

Gouging her eyes wouldn't be so bad either.

"... Cardin?"

"The first match will be between Cardin Winchester and Coco Adel. Please head for the locker rooms and return once you're ready." Cardin didn't acknowledge Sky as he persisted on getting his leader's attention. But he didn't have to ignore any jeers, because everyone was still wary after watching him nearly punt a student's head off in front of the amphitheater.

" _Break a leg, Cardin._ " Well, except for Nora, who felt no fear when seeing Cardin; all feelings of fear in her was just simply overwhelmed by an unhealthy obsession of wanting to snap Cardin's legs in half.

Cardin didn't let this insult go either, choosing to turn around and say: "Hey Ren, learn to put a leash and gag on your bitch and learn how to control her."

This, surprisingly to Cardin and the rest of JNPR, was enough to prompt Nora to lunge at him, attempting to tackle him down with her inhuman strength. Except Cardin just held his right hand out to grab Nora by her bright-orange red hair, effectively stopping her by lifting her up in the air away from him, leaving her to throw punches aimed at him, only to hit nothing but air as some students started to laugh at her.

"Nora! Calm down this instance or I will send you straight to the Headmaster's office!" Shouted Glynda, shocking the girl as she blushed in embarrassment.

"What?! Didn't you hear what **_he_** said?!"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I did. And even though I disapprove of Cardin choosing to say that, the reason he said those words though was because **_you_** chose to aggravate him, a choice which was uncalled for. Now are you going to calm down, or are you going to have to see Ozpin today?"

Nora felt like bursting in raw emotion, but she bit her tongue and held back her feeling, only saying: "... I'm sorry, I'll calm down."

"Good," Glynda replied to the demoralized huntress-in-traing, turning her gaze over to Cardin now, "you may release her, Cardin."

He obliged, releasing Nora and letting her fall onto the floor, which didn't help with beating down her desire to now inflict more injuries than just broken legs on the behemoth of a student. But like a submissive animal, she instead held her head down in shame, going back to Ren's side, who gently wrapped his arms around her and looked up at Cardin, shooting daggers straight into his eyes, if he could see them at least. But all he was met with was a vile sneer from a child of Disown.

Cardin turned back around, heading for the locker room as previously instructed, receiving no more mockery as he went his way. He went into the locker room, hearing Coco either opening or closing her locker- he didn't care, made his way towards his own locker, swung it open, stripping himself down while managing to keep his poncho and gloves. The Winchester proceeded to don on his black underclothing, silver and gold armor, and made his way to the exit, opening to door to see Coco standing on the other side of the hallway, leaning back against the wall across from Cardin, who from seeing her was now miffed because of how much trouble he was going through just to fight her.

"What the fuck is it now?

Coco show no emotion to Cardin's irritation, calmly replying with, "You know, Cardin, as much as I would love to kick you ass and put you in your place in front of everyone..." She sighed and took a few steps to him before stopping, just to keep a safe distance between her and him. "It still wouldn't be satisfying enough for me."

"..."

"... So, how about you and I make a bet, hm?"

"... Okay." Cardin bluntly answered, feeling all of his anger fade away when he thought of what he wanted if he wins.

But the second-year stated what she wished for first. "Good. Now if I win, you have to leave Beacon, go back to whatever shithole you came out of, and never, ever come back here, for as long as you live."

Cardin hissed, seriously considering to immediately call this all off and just have a normal spar. He didn't care how low the likelihood of him losing was, having the possibility of dealing with the wrath of his mother for losing and having to leave Beacon made it all seem unworthy to agree to. But he realized he doesn't have to oblige to such a demand in the first place. To Cardin, if he loses, he knows he can just say "fuck it" and not leave. He did not care if it degraded his character, if it ruined his credibility-- mostly because because he still did not care for something like that.

"Okay," so against his better judgement, Cardin decided to agree to it, "yeah, that seems fair. But if I win, I get to have my way with you for one night."

"... **What?** "

"You heard me, bitch." Cardin said as he walked towards Coco, closing the space between them until their faces were just a few inches away, forcing the second-year to endure his hot breaths and strong musk of jerky. "If I win, I get to have your body all to myself, for anytime that I choose." The sight of Cardin's tongue licking his lips as he said "body," along the wager itself, disgusted Coco more-so than anything else she had ever heard Cardin say, or seen anything he had ever done. With that disgust was also unbridled rage, demanding for Coco to smack the young man down right in front of her for being such a pervert in the first place. "If you don't want to do it though, than we can call it off. Just as long as you're okay with missing your chance to send me away forever."

"..... Fucking fine," but just like Cardin, Coco's desires got the best of her too, holding her hand out for him, "deal."

Cardin smiled, again showing off his shark-like teeth to demonstrate his excitement as he roughly grabbed her hand, sealing the deal with a firm handshake before letting go and immediately walking back to the center of the amphitheater, with a livid Coco following behind him by a few dozen feet or so, though with strands of cold-sweat running down her forehead.

The two future-huntsmen took their spots across from each other as the rest of the student body watched in anticipation, finally getting to watch the most hated student in Beacon get a beating well-deserved. While Dove, Sky, and Russel simply waited to watch Cardin annihilate Coco; their confidence in him winning was even higher than his own. As long as they've known each other, they always considered Cardin to be more dangerous when using his hands and nails, rather than his mace, due to his unpredictability.

"Are both of you ready?"

"Yessss." Cardin responded while Coco nodded her head in agreement, clenching fists in preparation to slug some of his chompers out of his filthy mouth.

"Then you two may begin."

Right at the end of that sentence and the light darkening, just like the last time he sparred, Cardin again practically broke the sound barrier by dashing forward at the fashionista, prompting her to raise her aura-infused arms up in front of her to block whatever his twisted mind planned on doing.

What he did do though, no one, not even his brothers expected, was as he covered half the distance between him and Adel, Cardin used his momentum to bend his knees and launch his gargantuan frame into the air in arch-like fashion, cocking his right elbow back as he descended upon an awe-stricken Coco, only to his the air itself as she barely saved herself by rolling beneath Cardin, causing him to awkwardly land and stumble.

During which, Adel snapped back around and slammed her heel into the back of his knee, managing to bring him down on said-knee, giving her the opportunity to lock him into a rear choke hold, wrapping her arms around his thick neck and locking her hands together to effectively pull-off the technique.

Only to be brought up off her feet as Cardin rose back up at his full height. He did somewhat choke and gag as he moved about like a madman before- much to Coco's surprise- jumping a good fifteen feet into the air and positing himself to effectively smash her up against the floor with his weight. The decision, albeit effective in delivering blistering pain the entire backside of Coco, knocking her black shades off in the process, was not however enough to beat her grip, still maintain the hold on the behemoth first-year student.

So in response, Cardin did what he thought was the next best course of action, which was sinking his razor canines into one of her arms. Even though it didn't break skin, the searing pain to Coco was like as if his teeth had managed to break her entire arm in half with their force, which, as one would expect, would be enough to force her to release the hold, leaving her with tears shedding as she screamed and fell on her back, holding her arm close to her. This all of course left Cardin with enough time to turn around and pounce on her.

He straddled her in a rather lewd position, though instead of attempting to start intercourse, Cardin, with all the fury in him, grabbed Coco's head with both of his hands, clad in leather, and slammed her head into the smooth marble stage, repeating as so, causing her hat to fall off next as the back of her skull created sickening cracks that one would attribute to being bone breaking. But thanks to her aura, her skull stayed intact, which was instead breaking the marble where Cardin used her head to smash against.

But, again, the suffering was enough to force more tears to sprout from her ducts as she furiously grounded her teeth against each other. As Cardin kept on going with the battering, he started to make noises that appeared to be the hybrid of cackling and screaming, filling the entire amphitheater with nothing but the sick noise of a sadist finding pleasure in another person's agony.

He did stop though, ending the assault and laughter with one last slam, leaving Adel's cranium alone and letting it fall back into the depression he created with it, giving the young woman a dazed sensation, along with continuous, throbbing aches that left her cheeks wet with tears that both begged for mercy, while also wanted to hurt Cardin in any way possible. But as of now, she was incapable of moving, leaving her to Cardin who grabbed her by her now-rough brown hair by that small, long, wavy, caramel-colored lock of hair, bringing her head up into the air, giving the Winchester a clear line-of-sight at her neck.

And like a beowolf or boarbatusk, Cardin chomped down onto the vein-filled body part with enough power to cause Coco to scream bloody-Mary, wailing like a submissive prey caught by a dominant predator that threatened to rip and tear her esophagus, larynx, trachea, and thyroid gland, holding her down by her wrists as he did so, growling and snarling like a creature of grimm, getting his saliva all over the smooth, fair skin of her vulnerable neck.

"CARDIN-- STOP!" Luckily for the poor fashionista, Glynda was here to stop this madness. Cardin immediately released his grip on the second-year student's neck as the rest of the lighting came back on, revealing a crowd of horrified, baffled, and somewhat enraged students, having just watched one of the toughest girls at Beacon be reduced to nothing but Cardin's bitch in this squash match.

Except for Dove, Sky, and Russel, who looked rather impressed by their leader's ability to dominate.

"... I win, sweetie. A deal's a deal~." He sweetly whispered into her ear, getting up off her panting, sweaty body soon after to listen to Goodwitch's evaluation of the match...

* * *

_"Ah, Baroness Ziz, it is a pleasure to see you again."_

_"... Yeah, it's nice to see you too."_

_"Still having trouble with sleeping-"_

_"-Yeah, yeah, yes, **yes,** I am. You always ask that whenever you come here."_

_"Well... I wouldn't have to ask that every time I arrive if you once got some proper sleep."_

_"Ho-ohhhh man, you don't know how badly I want to end you right now."_

_"... Ziz, I am your ally, not an enemy. I apologize if-"_

_"-Fucking-- okay, yeah, whatever. Why did you come for this time?"_

_"... Well, Baroness, I come here with a message of concern from Vale's council."_

_"Okay, what is it?"_

_"The Council, Ziz, has recently come under fire by not only faunas and humans, but also the other Councils from Mistral, Vacuo and Atlas, for allowing you and your police to practice the..."_

_"... Fucking, shit-- asshole, what? They want us to stop with the Sacrifice for Salvation act? Is that it? Is that **fucking it?!** "_

_"Y-Y-Yes, Baroness, Vale's Council requests that if you wish to remain as a vassal under our rule, then you must abolish this law. Almost half of Remnant believe it is inhuman and cruel to make it where a faunas can only acquire a job by letting you and your men cutting off their ears, tails, wings, and tongues."_

_"... Okay."_

_"... Really?"_

_"Really... what?"_

_"That's it? You'll actually do it?"_

_"I mean... yeah, I guess I will. A lot of my soldiers have actually been complaining about having to do it ever since I created it. And it's not like the White Fang are letting me just get away with it. Those fucking fuckers keep on attacking me at least once a month, and even though I enjoy capturing and torturing them, it has been annoying recently. So... yeah, if that's what the pussy--ass world wants, then the pussy-ass world will get it."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... Uh... is there anything else they want, or...?"_

_"No no, I was just thinking of how no one has killed you yet for literally being the worst thing Remnant ever conceived."_

_"... Honestly, yeah, it's pretty fucking crazy how many people try to kill me and fail..."_

 

 


	4. I Know He Hears Me When My Feet Get Weary...

_** Chapter 4:  ** _ _**I Know He Hears Me When My Feet Get Weary...** _

_"What the fuck happened here?"_

_"Ma'am, about two hours ago, the police reported a group of White Fang members broke into the Lark household and murdered the parents._

_"Shit, wh-"_

_"-But their son, Sky, hasn't been found. The same officers stated that they saw the White Fang fleeing from the scene with a small body in a sack, obviously struggling to get out. It was most likely Sky Lark."_

_"Fuck..._ _**FUCK!-** _ _Those goddamn cretins! Where did they run off to?"_

_"About south-east from here, bu- BUT, BUT, ma'am, Ziz, please calm down-"_

_"-No no no- the Lark's were good people! They didn't deserve this! I'm going to get my hands on those shit-eating cock-suckers!" I'll fucking force each of them to eat their own filthy fucking flesh!_

_"Ziz- ZIZ! Wait!"_

_"Now now, Sure-Shank, don't go after her."_

_"B-But Richard!"_

_"Don't worry for her health, if that_ _**is** _ _what you're worried about. What we should be scared of is if she accidentally kills Sky in this fit of rage. Or if she doesn't let any of the White Fang live; we could find use in interrogating one of them on the whereabouts of their bases here."_

_"..."_

_"... Well, as long as we're waiting, I'll prepare some tea for her return. I hope those terrorists didn't destroy the kitchen in the process of this... heinous act..."_

* * *

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Should we wake Cardin up?" Sky whispered, looking over Russel to see their leader slumbering like a gentle giant, slumped over the long desk of their row with his mouth agape for any flies to go into.

"Nah," Dove replied, "if Port wanted him to be awake, he'd tell us to wake him up by now. He's not annoying anyone with snoring either, so... yeah, just leave him."

Sky nodded, pursing his lips as he thought about it, and went back to working on their assignment. Lark would have waken up their leader anyway, just so he could do work and suffer like they were doing, if it hadn't been for the fact Cardin was a savant when it came to grimm studies.

So far in the past few days, CRDL have been having a good time. No one has given rude remark about them as they walked by, no one purposefully got in their way, no one has tried to pick a fight with them, no one just seemed eager in general to ruin their time her at Beacon. Dove, Russel, and Sky just attributed this to the possibility that Cardin has instilled new a new fear of them in their fellow huntsmen-in-training when he had layed a vicious smackdown on Coco, one of the top second-year students in Beacon today. No one would want to mess with a team who's leader took out one of the toughest students at Beacon in what was essentially a squash match.

Also horribly maiming one of the other students before going into the amphitheater with just a single kick to the face might have helped as well, CRDL didn't know.

But whatever the reason is, they were grateful for it because of how it had rendered Cardin into a passive giant for the past few days; Russel, Dove, and Sky hoped it would continue like this for the rest of the school year, where they don't have to constantly try their damnest to keep Cardin calm and collective. But in reality, they know one day some poor schmuck will come in and sour Cardin's mood, but for now, they might as well enjoy it.

"Cardin?" The bombastic professor caught the attention of CRDL except for Cardin himself. "Could one of you boys wake him up?" Port politely asked, prompting Russel to smack his leader upside of his covered head, getting one of the weirdest grunts he, or anyone else in the lecture hall had ever hear, almost sounding like a rough cough mixed with a mewl of pleasure. The Winchester raised his head up to look over at Thrush, flaring his sharpened teeth as if he was about to eat Russel's flesh in retaliation for daring to strike him. "Cardin, come outside with me. I wish to speak with you."

But fortunately for the punk-speedster, Port was their to pull Cardin's attention away from him. Winchester hesitated for a few seconds before simply nodding his head, getting up out of his seat and lumbering down the row. Port then took him outside from the room, closing the door behind them and inadvertently prompting multiple students to speak among each other slightly-higher than acceptable volume, while the rest of CRDL remained silent, with little enthusiasm to help them with finishing the assignment.

"Hey, Dove?" The brunette raised his head up when hearing the soft voice, swiveling his vision to his left to see Ruby, whom he had forgotten was even sitting next to him in the first place since she was late to sit next to anyone of her friends or teammates.

Albeit he was mystified by the fact Ruby was just talking to him, he still responded with, "What?"

"Is... is Cardin having trouble sleeping at night?" Dove could feel Russel and Sky glaring daggers at the back of his head, telling his somewhat-pudgy being not to mess up with answering her. It was enough to get a cold sweat out of him and a quiet gulp before giving his answer.

"Well... yeah, he is. Cardin suffers from... ai- restless leg syndrome."

"Oh no."

"Yeah," Dove said back, now feeling even more befuddled by hearing pity in her face for his brother, "it's... it's pretty bad. Combined with the fact for some reason his body is more warm than the average person, it basically gave him insomnia. He doesn't go to sleep around like... eleven, and maybe twelve. Then he will wake up one or two hours earlier than us and can't go back to sleep after that." Dove purposefully excluding one crucial detail would have earned him a small "Good job!" from Russel and Sky if it wasn't for the fact Ruby was right there next to him. "That's why he sleeps all the time during the day, and also grouchy."

"Oh, poor Cardin." Again, hearing someone other than Russel, Sky, Richard, and occasionally Ziz, sound genuinely sorry for Cardin still weirded Dove out, and was now doing the same for Lark and Thrush as well. It was so strange that they started to think Ruby was just faking all of this pity. But then why would she do that in the first place? They didn't know; maybe she really did feel bad for Cardin.

"Yeah, Cardin... I wish there was something we could do to help him. Everything we try never works..." Bronzewing stayed silent on that note, sitting there with a gloomy, thousand-yard stare, quiet for a few seconds before looking back down at his paper, going back to writing as Ruby looked at him a bit longer before returning to her paper too...

* * *

"What'chu want, Professor?"

"Cardin, my boy, you know that you're my best student I've ever had, right?"

"... No, I didn't know."

"Ah, well, you are. Never in my life have I ever met a person like you who know so much about grimm. Their behavior, their preferred environments, the different types of grimm encountered- why you've even taken the time to study even the most obscure of them."

"Yeah... yeah. Thanks Port."

"Yes, well, that is why I want to ask you if you would... mind tutoring one of your fellow students."

Cardin's inflated ego and confidence faded a little, with his little smile doing the same, wondering if he should accept it.

"Do... I get anything in return?"

"Well, I will be giving you extra-credit for doing this."

"Okay, cool." Cardin said, nodding his head. "And who... is it you want me to tutor?"

"Yang Xiao Long."

Cardin hissed at a rather high volume, almost sounding like a King Taijitu, almost giving the burly professor a heart attack for how unexpected and feral it was.

"You don't have to do it, Cardin, I'm just asking you if you'd like to do it." Port attempt to calm Cardin was commendable, that is if Cardin was actually enraged. But in actuality, Cardin was just unsure of doing his, tutoring a girl who's little sister was kidnapped by him.

"No, no, it's just..." Cardin licked his lips as he rubbed his hooded cranium, pondering on the offer. Cardin didn't need the extra credit, he knew that. His confidence in himself passing Port's class was so high that he believed that he could just sleep through every lesson and later on acing the tests as they came. It was working in reality after all. But then what would he lose in return of rejecting it? Building good relations with Yang was the only thing he could see himself getting out of this, yet does he need that? Maybe not, Cardin feels he could just go on through the rest of Beacon's curriculum just fine with Yang hating him. Yet with that in mind, Cardin knew there would be benefits if he managed to befriend, or at least improve relations with Yang while tutoring her. And if it doesn't work, than at least he'll be getting extra-credit out of it.

So he accepted the job. "Sure, yeah, I'll tutor Yang."

"Ah wonderful, my boy, I'll tell her about it after class and you two can start meeting each other in the library tomorrow after you're all finished with your classes."

Cardin nodded his head before speaking again, "Yeah, alright. Also, can I go to the bathroom?"

"Oh, but of course Cardin." The young man thanked the professor before walking pass him, soon hearing the door to Port's lecture hall close shut as he passed a corner leading into empty hallways, leaving Cardin to wander in peace throughout the corridors until he found the men's bathroom, entering the empty facility and using one of the urinal to relieve himself with a huge sigh of joy, bending his neck back and letting his lengthy tongue flop out, feeling the bathroom light warm his skin as the last drop came out.

After zipping back up, washing his leather gloves and drying them, Cardin exited the bathroom right as a certain someone passed by the door, getting her attention to look back to see Cardin, with his hidden gaze looking right at her dark-brown eyes, which were too hidden behind those black aviators of hers, which did little to hide the sense of worry that took hold of her as she watched Cardin's mouth form into a sick toothy grind wanting to taste her.

"Hey Coco," just hearing his voice again was enough to make her breathing stutter, watching, with his feet creating rough echoes throughout the almost void hallways as he walked up to her, soon feeling his warm breath hit her face. Coco ended up having to take a few steps back as the giant Winchester encroached upon her personal space, eventually hitting her back up against the wall, feeling a knot being tied in her chest as she watched Cardin lower his head in an angle where she could see his eyes beneath his black hood for the first time ever. "It's nice to see your little ass again, sweetie."

"B-Back off Cardin." He had to admit: hearing Coco stutter from fear aroused his twisted mind, prompting him to bring his left hand up to twirl one of his fingers in those long, wavy, caramel locks of hers, further unnerving Coco with his audacity to be invading her private space like this.

"Coco, I've been thinking of... what would be the perfect time for me to," Cardin gently brushed the side of his right, gloved hand up against her slightly reddened cheek, making her muscle tense while he closed the distance between their faces, "... take your sweet little ass and fucking break it."

"C-Cardin-"

"And you know what?" Cardin brought his mouth close to her right ear, blowing hot air on it to effectively give Coco goosebumps as her body temperature rose in response, while at the same time making her breathing stutter again, with Cardin's chest and stomach pressed up against hers, and his left arm now wrapping around behind her neck, feeling his fingers proceeding to grab hold of her right shoulder. "I think... I want to do that now."

"What? Now? O-out here?" Coco asked in a barely noticeable higher pitch, biting her bottom lip with her cheeks now fully blushing at the though of Cardin just ravaging her body out in the hallway, where any students or a faculty member can just stumble upon her gasping and moaning as the Winchester fucked her to death.

"No you stupid idiot, then we'd get caught. I'm talking about taking you back to my room."

"Oh."

"So come on." Cardin pulled back, grabbing her arm as he started to moved, forcing her to stumble about until she stopped herself from moving, prompting Cardin to stop as well to look back, visibly annoyed, snaring his teeth to say, "What now? We made a deal, **Coco**."

"I-I know. It's just-"

"-What? I'm sure you can afford to miss a few classes"

"I... I don't want to be seen walking over to your room with you." Cardin's lips morphed into a frown, letting go of her as he nodded his head, understanding that Adel might not want anyone getting any ideas of what they're doing. Even if they were traveling in-between periods, all it would take is just one student to see them and spread rumors.

"Okay... okay, yeah. Just... stay far behind me, but not too far to the point that you lose me. Okay?"

With butterflies in her stomach, Coco reluctantly said, "Yes." And with that, Cardin left her, leaving Coco to stand, thinking of running while he had his back turn, or potentially hiding in the girl's bathroom. The only problem with those plans was that Coco was sure Cardin would easily catch her if she ran, or that he wasn't above breaking down a stall door and dragging her out.

So she waited for a few more seconds, a few more, a few more, until she starting walking in Cardin's direction, getting a twisted smile to sprout up from hearing the ever-so faint footsteps behind him. His hearing allowed him to carefully listen to the pitter-patter of her nervous feet as he payed attention to where he was leading her, encountering the occasional student or faculty member who payed them no mind as they passed by.

Coco would be lying if she said she was not scared right now. With each step taking them closer and closer to Cardin's dorm, the more the thought in her head fretted over Cardin not using protection, or Cardin taking actual chunks of flesh out of her with his teeth, or just how long he would take in general. But one thought that filled Coco with fear was that she would end up getting pregnant with a Winchester. Coco knew she could just get an abortion if that happened, but what if Cardin wasn't? What if he just forced her to keep the kid?

 _'Nonsense,'_ she thought, feeling all that blushing fear for what was about to happen as they entered a dorm building, _'that asshole can't force me to keep a kid I don't want,'_ with that being the final though as she found Cardin, waiting by his dorm room for her, sneering with lust for Coco. She gulped before she approached him, prompting the giant student to open the door and enter, waiting for Coco to reluctantly enter, feeling those butterflies starting to flutter hard and wild when seeing Cardin shut that door behind her.

"Okay, Cardin, so..." She trailed off as she watched Cardin take his red-lined, black leather gloves off of his hands, with thick, fat fingers that, much to Coco's shock, had white claws with rounded points, rather than being normal finger nails on the end of his fingers.

"Man, you're lucky I don't sharpen these." That didn't make Coco feel any better though, not taking her eyes off of this physical abnormality, not even noticing Cardin taking off his favorite poncho of a similar design, not until she saw it being slung onto one of the crates in their room, making her look back up at him to see his burnt-orange hair combed backwards, a strong jaw-line with a well defined chin, and those eyes, where the white is instead of a golden color, and his pupils were just pure black.

Coco would rather break both her arms than saying it, but Cardin is attractive to some extent. His razor teeth, clawed hands, and despicable personality just kill off the rest of the handsomeness in him that would make him the sexiest young man in Beacon.

"Okay," Cardin started, seething with anticipation as he walked over to Coco, who had just finished studying Cardin's features fast enough to bring her back down to Remnant in that previous state of flustered and worry, her cheeks turning red and burning again as he wrapped one arm around her waist, the other around her neck, and just lifted her up to line their faces up, getting a small gasp of surprise that was quickly shut up when Cardin locked his lips with hers.

Immediately, Coco wrapped her legs around his waist, but started pressing her hands up against Cardin's chest to push him away, wanting to desperately breath as she closed her eyes in fury while his long tongue pressed up against her closed teeth. Irritated with this, the Winchester brought one of his hands to her ass to violently grab her cheeks through the tights, roughly mashing the mound between his clawed fingers. Coco's eyes almost rolled to the back of her skull as Cardin finally pulled back to let her breath and moan freely, her face now red as a beet while he took off her sunglasses with little resistance, casually throwing them onto Russel's bed to see her eyelids halfway-opened while he still recovered from suffocating, heavily breathing through her mouth while Cardin still played with her ass, giving him a window to get into her mouth.

He proceeded to bring his lips back to hers, catching her off guard with his lengthy tongue getting into her mouth to wrestle with her own tongue. Again though, Coco started pushing against Cardin, further angering to the point of grabbing the back of her head with his free hand, entangling his fingers with her short brown hair as he pushed hard, overpowering Coco easily to deepen the rough make-out session, allowing his tongue to dominate and violate her mouth with little effort, effectively melting Adel's mind as her body temperature raised to the point that she swore she was going to have a heat stroke, further mewling in what was now pleasure, now wrapping her arms over Cardin's broad shoulders, feeling his tongue almost reaching down into her throat, and his erect member beneath his pants, rubbing up against her covered pussy, which now started to become damp from Coco's acceptance, and excitement, for what whatever happened.

Eventually, Cardin pulled again, with a few lines of saliva stretching between his Coco's lips, who started to pant like she had just ran a marathon, resting her head on his right shoulder with her dark-brown eyes growing weary from the heat and pleasure she was feeling from just making out with Cardin, still holding onto him with a vice-grip with her arms, while he still kept on groping her ass cheeks, not caring if he started to rip apart her tights, or scratching her skin in the process.

The Winchester, now wanting to move further on with turning Coco into a submissive bitch, decided to throw her onto his own bed, slightly knocking the wind out of her as he soon pounced on her soon after, eyeing her body to decide where to move on, soon stopping at her breasts while Coco just watched him, actually smiling in anticipation for what he was about to do next.

"Here- sit up." And Coco obliged, sitting up to let Cardin unbutton her jacket and vest, which was somewhat difficult due to his claws making it so, but he managed to get to stripping Adel of her white shirt, exposing her breasts to jiggle as her top was taken off, surprising Cardin with the fact that she wasn't even wearing a bra, while Coco just sat there, feeling her body grow, eagerly waiting for what Cardin was going to do.

What he did was push Coco back down against the bed as he wrapped his mouth down to her left nipple, suckling and licking the soft pink tip while his right hand just grabbed her right breast entirely, squeezing and pulling the soft mound, occasionally squeezing the nipple between his claws to get a sharp gasp of approval from the second-year student.

Coco let herself drown in ecstasy, laying her head back against the pillow, with her dark-brown eyes half-opened, gazing up at the ceiling while she let her tongue hang out while her breathing grew more and more airy, and her skin became covered with goosebumps, moaning with pleasure that only encourage Cardin to keep on going. She soon began to gyrate hips, rubbing her still covered pussy up against Cardin's dick, being squeezed by his pants, throbbing and pulsing, begging to be let out to penetrate Adel.

She started to gently whisper between her dirty mewls, telling him not to stop, to keep on doing whatever he wanted to do to her body, to keep on ruining her. Coco roughly grabbed the back of Cardin's head, rubbing him as a sign of approval while his suckling, his licking, his groping, and his pulling grew more and more animalistic, covering her boobs with his own saliva. In turn, Coco's groaning, mewling, panting, and rubbing of her hips grew more active too, with her underwear becoming damper and damper with every second passing.

At some point, Cardin forced his free hand down beneath her skirt, her underwear to start playing with her pussy, teasing her by brushing his clawed fingers against her pussy, prompting Coco to suddenly start begging him to do it. And he complied, shoving two of his fat fingers in-between the folds, making multiple different movements that along side with his groping and suckling of her breasts, melted her mind to nothing but wanting more. She begged Cardin get rougher, making him plunge his two thick digits in-and-out at a rapid pace, while now occasionally biting her breasts, drawing a little blood and causing some pain that was only drowned by her desire to wanting to cum.

It didn't take too long after demanding he got more rough that Coco started to feel herself about to climax, prompting her to keep shut her eyes and let out longer, more higher moans, unintentionally making Cardin crank his biting, licking, fingering, and groping up to eleven, feeling his dick growing harder and harder as Coco finally approached her climax, cumming and slathering Cardin's fingers in her own juices while he stopped playing with her breast just to focus on pulling and shoving his two fingers, grinning perversely as he watched Coco shut her eyes, her cheeks turn impossibly red, her moans becoming more hoarse and loud while feeling her cum now covering the rest of his hand.

He eventually stopped when Coco entered a relaxed state, now just heaving to regain her breath, leaving Cardin to pulling out his drenched fingers, which got a long, quiet mewl that pleaded with him to put the back in. But instead, Cardin put his two fingers into her mouth, stating, "Fucking clean it up you little whore," making Coco sucking and licking his fingers and entire hand to the wrists, at the same time gently rubbing her head, feeling her disheveled hair while listening to the slobbering sound of Adel cleaning his hand of her own cum, soon looking back down to see her blushing face, tears rolling down her cheeks as she soon released his hand from her mouth, looking back up at Cardin with a little bitch face that most pleased him.

"You're such a good little bitch, Coco," Cardin lowered his head to lock lips with her again, making out with Coco to taste her now while getting her to softly whimper, still wanting more from him. "Now, get on your hands and knees, and show me you fucking ass." Whimpering again, Coco followed his orders and turner herself over, keeping her upper body down against the bed while she presented her perfectly round ass to Cardin, covered with her black tights and her red plaid skirt. "I gotta say, Coco, your ass is far nicer than your chest."

"S-Shut up." She meekly shot back, still exhausted from having just been fingered and groped by this vile giant, who only chuckled.

"You're so pathetic." Was what he said before unzipping his pant, finally letting out his uncircumcised penis out for fresh air, pulsing and growing even more in excitement for getting ready to destroy her ass. Coco managed to get a good look at it, shocked in awe from the size of Cardin's member; it was probably only one or two inches longer than average, but the girth was what made it impressive, getting her wet so soon again, now suddenly being overwhelmed with the desire to get ruined by his cock now.

Cardin moved on with pulling down down her skit and tights to just her knees, exposing her bare ass to Cardin's callous hands, proceeding to slap her right cheek with a hand, being hard enough to get a disgruntled, lewd grunt out of Coco, gripping his pillow as he continued on with smacking her ass cheeks, leaving red hand prints on the fleshy globes.

He actually stopped when Coco shouted, "Just- fucking stop, Cardin! Just f-fuck me already."

"Okay, okay." He wryly replied, just grabbing both cheeks with his clawed hands, digging them into her skin and he brought himself closer to her ass. He spread her cheeks apart to line his raging member with her asshole, getting a sharp gasp out of Coco as she felt his tip press up against the opening, her whole body trembling and burning, screaming for him to just do it already.

The Winchester did finally shove himself into her, forcing her asshole to widen beyond normal capacity as she shoved her face into his pillow to scream in erotic euphoria, quickly bringing her face pack up to freely huff and puff in pleasure, her eyes wincing in joy as Cardin slowly pushed in deeper and deeper, madly twitching and pulsing until he bottomed out, getting Coco to start panting in pleasurable insanity from feeling her ass be ravaged and destroyed by Cardin Winchester.

"Oh- _fuuuuuuuck! P-Please break m-me_." Hearing her finally become a submissive bitch got Cardin excited, quickly pulling out his dick until his tip only remained inside, getting more whimpering and mewling from the pathetic huntress-in-training, biting her lips to the point they started to bleed as he then violently rammed into her rectum, making her scream again in ecstasy.

Cardin repeated the process, aggressively picking up the pace as he slapped his balls up against her pussy, forcing Coco to groan in cohesion with every time Cardin hist bottom, sometimes feeling him just lift her up with his dick as he started to lose himself in making Coco his own little bitch. The young man legitimately started to growl like an animal as he scraped his penis against the walls of Coco rectum, but she could barely hear him due to every one of her senses growing numb as nothing but sexual delight.

The Winchester, now gripping Adel by her hips, digging his white, round claws into her skin and violently pulling her up against his crotch as he roughly thrusted his throbbing dick into her ass, with his growls becoming deeper and louder as Coco's groans and whimper grew in volume, her eyes now rolling to the back of her skull, her knuckles turning white from so tightly gripping Cardin's pillow, her toes curling while her body started to significantly tremble even more, and more tears rolling down her tomato-red cheeks and being soaked by the pillow.

Cardin eventually lowered his body onto Coco, seething with saliva drooling down onto her back while he kept on thrashing the insides of Coco's asshole, almost believing she was about to cut his member off with how tight her asshole had become ever since they started. Though that only brought him closer to ejaculation, motivating him to just accelerate his pace and grabbing Coco by her hair, pulling her up with a sensual whimper coming out from he lips that incidentally brought Cardin closer to releasing himself into her.

"Who's my little fucking bitch? Huh?!" Cardin violently pulled on Coco's hair, only getting her to squeeze her asshole on his twitching member tighter while letting out another moan that only a submissive bitch could make, only making Cardin ram her ass faster in anger. "Who, is my little cum slut? **Who?!** "

" _M-M-Meee,_ " Adel replied in a stuttering moan, feeling as if her ass was about to break in half by this animal of a young man, " _I-I-I'm your c-cumslut._ "

"That's **fucking** right." Cardin stated, almost growling as he spoke, still ramming his twitching, brimming cock into her asshole, feeling his pre-cum pouring out between her asshole and his dick, not letting go of her hair as her closed to ejaculating. "You're fucking mine, Coco? Do you hear me? You're my little bitch that has please me whenever I want to fuck, understand?" Coco didn't answer, instead being to busy with letting herself make more mewls, more groans, more whimpering as she felt her body tense, coming closer with climaxing for a second time

" **DO,** " thrust, " **YOU** ," thrust, " **UNDERSTAND?!** "

"Oh- _gooood. Yes,_ yes I understand!" Coco screamed, hugging the pillow at this point, with her ass quaking every time Cardin rammed into her. "Y-Y-you can use me whenever you w-w-waaaaant!" Hearing this finally made Cardin lose himself, just letting himself fall onto her back while his thrusting grew at an unruly speed, making Coco practically bawl with moans and groans, with mewls and whimpers, all combined with her body trembling and burning up in heat, panting as she felt Cardin's dick completely dominate her body. Cardin forcibly made Coco to turn her head back, allowing him to lock lips with her one more time, embracing her in a passionate kiss as he finally came into her asshole, filling her rectum to the brim, not slowing with his thrusts which in turn made Coco cum in response, moaning into his mouth with their fluids coating the blankets and sheets beneath their trembling bodies.

Cardin eventually stopped, pulling himself back from Coco and letting go of her hair, watching her fall onto his pillow, her tired dark-brown eyes just looking ahead at the wall as she gasped and wheezed, with her body twitching in aftershocks of pleasure. Sickly smiling, Cardin chose to pull his now limp cock out of her asshole slowly, hearing squishy noises while getting one more protesting mewl from the fashionista before he got it out, seeing her asshole remain gaping with some of his cum pouring out before it shrunk back to its normal size.

The Winchester then proceeded to simply fall onto his bed, landing behind Coco and wrapping his arm around her, bringing her closer to him as they both panted, their bodies both having a hard time cooling down since they were being pressed together.

"I'm... I'm glad you... you accepted your punishment... Coco..."

"This... this wasn't really a punishment..."

"... Does that mean you enjoyed it?"

"What... what do you think?" With that, Coco turned her head back enough to kiss Cardin on the cheek, successfully getting a small smile to appear on his face.

"Heh heh, thanks..."

"... You won't... tell anyone we did this, right?"

"Yeah... yeah- don't uh... worry about that. I won't tell, just as long as you tell anyone what I look like."

"I... okay. I won't."

"Thanks..."

"..."

"..."

"... Can I take a shower here? Some of the faunus might be able to-"

"-No, yeah, I get it. You can shower here."

"Cool..."

* * *

"Well, Yang, I have found you a suitable tutor just for you."

"Cool, who is it?"

"Cardin."

"..."

"... You will meet him tomorrow in the library to begin your lessons, and you will continue to meet him every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."

"... Please no."

"... You know, Cardin was reluctant at first too. But he accepted to _help_ you, Yang, despite whatever difference you two may have. So can't you give him a chance?"

"But he's... he's just such an asshole."

"Whether that be the case, Yang, he is still your last chance, unless you're just going to take it upon yourself to study up everything you've failed on."

"..."

"Now, I do believe you have more classes to go to. So move along now."

"..."

"... Come on Yang, we got to go to Peach's soon."

"... Yeah, I'm coming Ruby..."


	5. Penitentiary Chances, the Devil Dances...

_**Disclaimer: I do not own anything from RWBY** _

_"Fucking hold her down damnit! Hold, her, DOWN! We need this fucking bitch alive!"_

_"UGH-Let me go you bastards! ARGH- FUCKING-"_

_"_ _**-SHUT UP YOU CUNT!** _ _"_

**_PHWACK! CRUNCH!_ **

_"_ _**AAAAAGGGH-** _ _YOU FUCKING WHORE!"_

_"You gonna stop resisting now, sweetie? Or am I gonna have to give my soldiers permission to fucking violate you until you talk?"_

_"Fuck, YOU! You goddamn moonshine-chugging piece of shit!"_

_"Hey now, we make moonshine because of our surplus in maize. That doesn't mean-"_

_"-Sure-Shank, shut the fuck up. And you-_ _**you!** Look at me when I'm talking to your primitive bunny ass, and listen fucking closely. If you tell us where your little White Fang pussywillow playmates are based at on Disown, we'll let you live, in prison at least." _

_"Heh heh- I'd rather die than f-fucking tell a racist monster where we're stationed at!"_

_"Ho-oh! Racist? You hear that guys? I'm racist. But at least I don't kidnap children and give them over to my most twisted soldiers for them to **fucking** torture!"_

_"But you fucking feed faunus humans to grimm, you let your soldiers do whatever they want to prisoners, and you consume the flesh of us and your own kind. So don't g-go and fucking think that your better than us!"_

_"... Okay wittle wabbit, you got me. But I'm still make you talk."_

_"What... what are you doing?"_

**_PHWACK!_ **

_"Talk."_

_"FFFFUCK YOU! That- wait... what ar- **AAAAGGGGGHHH! G-GIVE ME MY FINGERS BACK!** "_

_"FUCKING TALK NOW!"_

_"F-F-FUCK OFF!"_

_"Okay, fine. Pull her pants down so I can shove my sword into her asshole."_

_"WHAT?! H-HEY! FUCKING S-S-STOP!"_

_"Come on! Just fucking rip them off damnit!"_

_"Ma'am! Can't you just shove it in her through her pants?!"_

_"I don't want to miss, Sure-Shank."_

_"S-STOP! PLEAAAASE! I-I'll talk, I'll f-fucking talk!"_

_"Aw, that's a good wittle wabbit. Now stop your bitch-tears and tell us where the rest of the Fang are hiding at..."_

* * *

Russel stared at the clock, counting down the seconds until they'd be done with having to listen to another one of Port's stories, resting his face on his palm as he switched his gaze between the clock and the lecture hall door, watching for Cardin to return. After Port had come back in without their leader, Sky inquired of the Winchester's whereabouts, being told that he had simply gone to the bathroom after their talk, assuring them that he would be back.

That twenty-four minutes ago, and Cardin has yet to return, with at least thirty seconds remaining until the period is suppose to end.

"What's taking him so long?"

"Russel," Sky started, who with little enthusiasm was watching videos on his scroll, with one headphone out to hear what was going in the outside world, "he's probably just, you know, puking, maybe shitting. You know how long it can take for him to take a shit in the morning."

"Yeah, but-"

The bell rang throughout Beacon, cutting Port off and getting the student back up on their feet, grabbing their school supplies and heading for the door, with the three young ruffians lagging behind.

"Ah, Miss Yang, would you care to talk to me for just a minute?" Was the last thing Sky, Russel, and Dove heard before exiting the room, continuing on with what they were talking about.

"Look, just call Cardin."

"Why do _I_ have to call Cardin?" Lark shot back to Russel.

"Because you have your scroll out already."

"You know, Russel, you always act so gosh damn paranoid. Cardin's probably fine, okay? He's just taking a long shit."

"Or puke." Dove spoke up.

"Yeah, or that too. But, Russel, you can just grind my nerves sometimes with how anxious you are, okay? Just, just take some chill pills, maybe start back on Xanax again, and you'll be okaaay."

Russel, who's now peeved, retorted, "That still wouldn't fucking mean Cardin's alright."

"Okay, shut up, both of you, and we can go and check on Card-"

"-Wait," Sky interrupted Dove, opening and reading a text he had just gotten on his scroll from Cardin, "it's him. He just went back to our room to sleep the rest of day off. So there you go Rus."

Russel let his head fall back, letting out a long huff of air as they kept on walking among the students, going to their next classes. "Okay, cool, cool. He's just gonna sleep his fat ass off."

"Yeah, Russel, I just read the message. You don't need to repeat everything you hear."

Thrush almost stopped just to clock the halberdier, but restrained himself with clenching fists and glaring, drilling a hole into the side of Sky's head, which was noticed by the bluenette.

"What? It's true."

"... I can't for the day you die." All Russel got in return for that rather cruel comment was a raspberry for Sky, getting some spit on Russel's uniform, finally tipping Thrush over the edge.

"Hey, stop you two, we're here." But before Russel could do anything, Dove got in the way between his two teammates to point at the door into Peach's lecture hall, managing to stop any fight from breaking out. "Come on, l-"

"Hey fucktards." Unfortunately though, not everything Dove does can save him and his brothers from being confronted by others though.

The three young Disown men turned around to recognize a pissed female, tailed-tiger faunus behind them, Diamond Sonya, standing over all of them, almost reaching Cardin's height, her long, dark red hair tied into a ponytail. Two of her teammates behind her, one being a stoic girl with shoulder-length platinum-blond hair of an average build and fair skin, Elma, and a scrawny, glasses-wearing pale human boy, similary angered like Diamond, head shaven and legs longer than his torso, Darka who was taller than the three CRDL boys, but still shorter than the tiger faunus. The three students belonged to first-year team REDD, who's leader, Ron Mahogany, was the boy whom Cardin sent to the medical building with a single kick, before sparring with Coco.

" _Ohhhh, heeeeeyy there_ _Diamond, how's-_ "

"-Shut up Sky!" The tigress shouted, getting a lot of unwanted attention directed at the three boys. "Where's Cardin?"

"Taking a nap, he's skipping the rest of the day. Where's Ron?" Russel asked, sounding as casual as possible, as an effort to make Diamond look like a buffoon who's angry for no particular reason.

"Ron's still recovering because of that asshole you guys call Cardin."

"... Kay," Dove started, now trying to sound nonchalant too, "so why are you guys looking for Cardin?"

"To give that fat bastard a taste of his own medicine." Darka replied, getting a laugh out of Sky while Dove looked at the scrawny boy, somewhat befuddled.

"Why do do people think Cardin's fat?"

"Dove... Cardin's a little bit more pudgy than you, okay? He doesn't got abs, has _kind of_ of a muffin top, maybe, an-"

"-That doesn't mean he can't break Stick Bug over here!" Sky shouted as a circle of student surrounded the six, while he gestured over to Darka. "I mean, seriously, Cardin could just break you in half by sneezing, or _breathing,_ or **_farting_** on you. And you," Sky looked over at Elma, who still remained calm while she raised a brow at the bluenette. "... I don't know, Cardin would probably just ignore you while he pounds the asses of your friends."

"... What?" That actually got a response out of Elma though, who, just like everyone else around Sky, including Russel and Dove, were caught off-guard by the phrasing Sky chose.

"You know what Sky? Beating the hell out of you three racist, shit-stain twerps would be just as good as kicking your leader's ass." The tall faunus stated, taking a few steps towards Sky, who in repose approached her as well, his arms wide out in a welcoming manner while he disgustingly grinned, stretching his glasgow-like features.

"Take a shot then, bitch."

"Sky!" Before the bluenette could look back at an irate Russel, Diamond accepted the offer and slammed her fist into Sky's gut, getting an all-too pleasurable, hoarse groan from the halberdier as he keeled over, only to be picked up by his head by the tiger faunas, who too was now smiling just as madly as Sky.

Immediately as the first punch was thrown, Dove and Russel rushed over to gang up on Diamond, but were stopped by Elma and Darka, which proved to be an unhealthy choice for them as they were easily overpowered by the two hooligans. Dove, just as he saw Elma step in front of his way, used his momentum to deliver a headbutt that struck squarely with her face, breaking her nose and forcing the student to reel back, covering her nose as blood started to pour out, giving Dove a window of opportunity to tackle her to the ground, starting to rail on her with vicious clenched fists.

Meanwhile, Russel simply jumped over an attempted leg sweep made by Darka, proceeding to turn around and slam an elbow into the scrawny boy's cheek, cutting the skin as his glasses went flying off his face, rendering him incapable of seeing what Russel would do next due to him being far-sighted. Thrush then quickly went for Darka's right leg, managing to pull and trip the taller student while still holding onto his lanky leg, and then unleash a non-stop assault of ruthless kicks and stomps, prompting Darka to cover whatever part of his body was struck, only to cover the next area hit by Russel.

And while all of this was taking place, Sky had managed to turn the tables on Diamond, who found herself struggling to removed Sky from her back while he just held on by wrapping both his arms around her neck, squeezing tighter and tighter, effectively slowing her as she struggled, eventually getting her down to one knee at some point, all the while the rest of the students just watched on, not doing anything, or saying anything, to help either of the groups of three. They would have actually cheered the members from REDD, had it not been for the face they were demoralized by watching how easily the CRDL boys were handling the fight.

"What is going on out here?!" But fortunately for the three natives of Vale, Professor Peach had come out to check on what all the commotion was coming from, pushing students aside to see Russel, Dove and Sky stopping their smackdown on the the three, now-submissive members of REDD.

"Uh, this isn't what it looks like, profe-"

"-I want you three to head for Ozpin's office, now!"

"Aw fuck you Peach!" Sky shouted, clearly irritated by her decision. "We didn't start this fight! These three punks came and started shit up. This was self-"

"-Ozpin's office, now!" Peach stopped him, now further angered by Sky's disrespectful attitude towards her.

The halberdier threw his hands up in the air, exasperated as he left the scene, with Dove and Russel, feeling the same, following him suit, with other students stepping aside for the three young Disownians to pass through, mumbling to themselves about self-defense not being appreciated...

* * *

"This is whore shit." Dove uttered, with him, Sky, and Russel all sitting in chairs, feeling defeated, waiting in a most empty CCT system to be called up into Ozpin's office. "This is all your fault, Sky."

" _Oh, it's **my** fault?_" Sky inquired, looking over at Bronzewing with his brows raised.

"Yeah, it kind of is. If you weren't some kind of **freak** that gets off by hurting people, _and_ being hurt, then we wouldn't be here. But no, you had to go and egg them on, you had to go and get into Diamond's face, you wanted to start a fight, just so you can get off..."

"..." Sky didn't have a retort for Dove's statement, knowing how pointless and foolish it would be to try and fight back against the truth.

"... You're sick, Sky. In fact, I'm pretty sure you've caused more fights ever since we came to Beacon than Cardin has."

"... Well, yeah you're right about that, Dove. But at least I don't go and kidnap girls, at least I haven't ever cannibalized another person, at least I don't go out into Emerald Forest and does God-knows-what!"

"What he has to do at night doesn't make him a monster and you know it!"

"Oh it _doesn'_ t _?!_ He's out there, e-"

"-Guys, can you both fucking shut up?" Russel crassly asked, silencing both of his brothers and earning himself annoyed scowls from the two. "Sky, shut up, okay? You just almost shouted out about what Cardin does every night like a dumbass, because you are one man, always going and giving out your ass to be beaten. Lay off of starting the fights, okay? Just try to control yourself, like Cardin does."

"Pfft, he does a shit job at it though. I'm pretty sure he's the reason why we're here to begin with. If he hadn't kicked Ron's face in, then his own little band of misfits wouldn't have had gone looking for us to begin with."

"Okay... yeah, that may be true. But you still do cause more fights than Cardin does."

"Fucking- whatever, fine, I'll try and... not get into fights more often."

"..."

"..."

"... I'm sorry for what I said, Sky."

Dove's apology was accepted. "Yeah... I'm sorry too, bro."

"... Bro."

"Bro."

" _Bro._ "

" ** _Bro._** "

"Shut, up." Again, Russel hushed both of his brothers, growing more and more agitated as he listened to what he was positive was strangling his brain celrols to death.

" _Russel Thrush, Sky Lark, and Dove Bronzewing, you three may see Headmaster Ozpin now._ " The three got out of their seats right as they heard the voice speak over the P.A. system, entering and going up Beacon Tower within an elevator. The door opened, letting the three young men out to wander the halls of the very top floor of Beacon Tower, eventually finding and opening the door to the spacious office of Ozpin, who was already sitting down at his desk, with his mug of hot cocoa by his side as he looked up from paperwork to see the three students.

"Ah, boys, please take a seat." Ozpin said, sounding as indifferent as usual, take a sip out of his mug soon after, while the young men sat themselves in front of his desk, still feeling that them being demanded to go see Ozpin was unfair. "Now, I've heard you three got yourselves into another altercation with some of my students, this time involving members of REDD. Would any of you care to... explain what happened in detail."

Quickly, the three young men silently eyed each other until Sky nodded his head, choosing himself to speak for them. "Well... Cardin crossed Ron a couple days ago, just kicking him in the face before going to combat class. So today, after we got done with Port's class, we were just going to Peach's next until the rest of REDD confronted us, demanding to know where Cardin was so they could beat him up."

"And where is Cardin right now?"

"... Sleeping, in our room. He barely got any sleep last night because of his insomnia, again."

"Ah, I see. Please, continue on with what you were saying previously."

Ozpin took another sip of his hot chocolate as Sky did as he was told. "Well... when we told them where Cardin was, I kind of... started to egg them on, I just started insulting them. I kept on going until Diamond started punching, that's when the fight started. Peach stopped us and... sent us here."

"I see..."

"..."

"Sky, this isn't the first time I've heard of you aggravating other students into attacking you. So... why, exactly, do you do this?"

"... I... like pain, and I like giving pain. it... pleasures me. That part of me is basically why I... tend to cause fights."

"... I understand, Sky. But just because you like to... experience pain, and hurting others, doesn't mean you can go around and instigate fights bouts with other students. This little scuffle you, Russel and Dove got in today could have been prevented easily if you chose not motivate Diamond and her companions into fighting you. Do you understand what I'm saying, Sky?"

"I understand sir."

"Good, because it is the reason why I'm giving you a week of detention, starting tomorrow. Russel, Dove, you two won't be given any punishment since it sounds like both of you were unwillingly dragged into a fight." Lark restrained himself from swearing-up a storm or throwing his chair at Ozpin, while Thrush and Bronzewing held themselves back from smirking or chuckling. "You three may leave and return to your classes now."

They complied to Ozpin's request, with Sky being the first to leave the room as he pressed his fingernails up against the skin of his palm, being followed by Dove and Russel, the latter shutting the door behind them, then bringing his gaze back to a now-sulking halberdier, looking as if her was about to punch a whole into the wall.

"You okay, man?"

"No, Russel, I'm not okay; this is injustice. I'm given detention while you two and Cardin ar-"

"-Sky, Sky, I don't care if you are okay or not. I was asking just to be nice." Russel's admittance only added fuel to the fire inside Lark, as he listened to Dove laugh at the cruel statement made by his brother. "Come on, let's get back to class." Thrush and Bronzewing walked ahead of a Lark who just stood there for a few seconds, feeling himself ready to explode with rage. But he instead took a deep breath, and exhaled, letting go his bubbling ire and accepting his fate, moving with catching up with his friends...

* * *

After having gone through rest of the day without meeting any more students looking for trouble, Sky, Russel, and Dove all headed for their room first thing after the school day's end, looking to rest themselves until it was time for dinner. When they reached and entered their dorm room, Cardin was sprawled out on his bed, still in his uniform, simply staring up at the ceiling with the T.V. on, and his black, red-lined poncho and gloves removed, bringing his head up to see his teammates having just come in.

"Hello."

"I thought you said you were getting sleep."

"I was." Cardin replied to Dove, sitting up in his bed, stretching his neck until he got a good pop. "I came here, slept, woke up, and watched T.V. for the rest of the day."

"You're a fat piece of crap, Cardin." Sky incredulously informed his leader, sitting down in his own bed and taking off his shoes.

"Love you too, babe." Cardin gave him a few air kisses after his comment, somewhat disgusting the bluenette.

"He didn't mean it, Cardin.-"

"-Yes I did.-"

"-He's just miffed today because he got detention."

Cardin inquired of Russel. "Why?"

"Ron's teammates were looking for you today, wanting to beat you down like a mule for what you did to him. But instead Sky egged them on to the point that they started fighting us instead. Peach broke it up, sent us to Ozpin, Sky told him what happened, and gave him a week of detention for instigating another fight."

"Pffffft." Was all Cardin had to say to that, looking back at Sky to see him already laying in his bed, watching the show that Cardin had on. "Sorry man."

"Yeah, whatever, it sucks monkey fuck." Cardin nodded in agreement.

Dove then brought up another subject, asking Cardin, "Hey, what was it that Port wanted to talk with you about."

"He asked me if I wanted to tutor Yang, and I said yeah to it."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... Why would you say yes?"

"Well, Dove, I said yes because... welp, I felt like it'd be a great way to help mend wounds with her, ya know. It'd be nice if she didn't hate me for the next four years of Beacon."

"Are you sure it's a good idea though? I mean... it does sound good, don't get it twisted, but... what I mean is that do you think it'll work?"

"... I hope so. If it doesn't then, hey, I still get extra credit."

"Are you sure you can even do it?" Russel asked. "Can you even tutor her properly without falling asleep."

"Yeah."

"And you won't get violent with her if she starts annoying you?"

"... Yeah."

"I don't like that delay, Cardin."

"I don't like your mohawk."

"Fuck you."

"NO! I only like attractive men who don't look like the jerky I eat!"

"... I want to fucking throttle you."

"..." Just like Sky, Cardin proceeded to give Russel a few air kisses too, disgusting him just like how they disgusted Sky.

* * *

"Ziz, madam."

"What- what is it, Richard? I'm fucking tired."

"I know, ma'am, but I have with me a request from several individuals and groups, including... me, actually, the Lancelet Builder's League."

"What? What does Lancelet want? What do _these **PEOPLE**_ want this time? Like I haven't given them e-fucking-nough already."

"It... well, it's more of a proposed plan really, to build an huntsmen academy here."

"... Why?"

"Why?"

"Why do they want to build an academy here? Why do _want_ an academy here on Disown?"

"Well... there a few reasons. One is that it'll provide more jobs to construction workers, architects, and electricians. Second is that it'll bring us closer to gaining independence.-"

"-Will it? Really? Will wasting resources on a fucking academy help us becoming our own kingdom?"

"It isn't like your doing anything else that'll help us gain independence."

"... Are you fucking kidding me? I'm practically building us an army each fucking night, going out there to Dion's fucking cesspool he calls home, and Cardin's doing the same out there in Vale too. Hell, ten years ago I probably could have started another war with our army back then to fight for becoming our own goddamn nation! Don't **you** fucking tell _**me**_ I'm not doing anything to help us with getting out of this shit deal with Vale!"

"..."

"..."

"... I... apologize, Ziz. Just... please here me out on this."

"... Fine, fine, fuck-ing fine. What else would we get from building an academy?"

"We would... also be getting our own Cross Continental Transmit System, which you and I both know would benefit Disown greatly."

"Fucking- really? Atlas agreed to giving us a motherfucking CC-FUCKING-T System finally? After all these years of us asking for one?"

"Only if we build this academy, though, which we need your permission to do so."

"Okay, fuck yeah, build the damn thing."

"Wonderful, ma'am, I'll inform everyone about this new and... hopefully we'll begin construction as soon as possible."

"Ye- wait. I don't... have to be the headmistress, right?"

"No, Ziz, you don't. We already have several hunters, huntresses, and other individuals who will fill the roles of faculty."

"Ahh- thank you God."

"Yes, well... goodnight, Ziz."

"You too, Dick."

"..."

"... What?"


	6. If I Get Too High Sugar Come On, I Might Never Come Down

_"She's waking up."_

_"She is? Ziz?"_

_"L... Lagune..."_

_"Ziz, don't sit up, relax."_

_"Lagune, where's... where-"_

_"The baby's fine, here, you can hold him."  
_

_"Haaaa... haaa- o-oh my God. He's... he's so big."_

_"Heh, yeah, they're saying it was the biggest baby they ever seen, weighing at 10.4 pounds."_

_"Pfheh, he's my... our little fatty. Our big ol' baby boy."_

_"Yeah, yeah..."_

_"Cardin."_

_"What?"_

_"That's his name, Cardin Winchester."_

_"Ziz, you already came up with a name?"_

_"Yeah, what about it?"_

_"Well, it's ju-"_

_"-You don't like it? HE came out of me, Lagune, I should get to name him."_

_"Ha ha, okay, okay sweetie. I wasn't saying I don't like it, I was just surprised you could come up with a name so fast."_

_"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you that I already came up with names."_

_"Hm..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... Lagune."_

_"Yes?"_

_"What are we going... to do now? Where do we keep Cardin when we start?"_

_"Don't worry about that, we have two hunters to keep him safe. Richard, and Sure-Shank."_

_"Oh, goo..."_

_"Ziz?"_

_"Sure-Shank? You're trusting someone called Sure-Shank to keep our baby safe?"_

_"I know it's not a pretty name, but he can be trusted."_

_"Uh-huh, yeah, you better hope he can, and what about this Richard?"_

_"The same goes for him. If you weren't even here on this island, he'd probably be the toughest huntsmen on this island."_

_"Where are they going to keep him though?"_

_"We have that figured out too, Ziz, don't worry about it, we found an abandoned mansion that'll be safe for them and a few dozen prisoners to keep guard of Cardin."_

_"You didn't say... fu- fine, okay, that sounds... good."_

_"Yes... yes..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"... He has your hair, you know."_

_"Yeah, I noticed. But everything else about this wittle guy came from you."_

_"Heh heh, his little claws are cute..."_

* * *

"Hey, hey..."

"..."

"... Psst, Yang, YANG, wake up."

"I am up, Ruby." Yang shouted, muffled due to having her face shoved into her own pillow.

"Oh, good, so..."

"Soooo... what?"

"Yang," Blake started, stopping Ruby from saying what it was she was going to say, "it's been twenty minutes since we got back to our room. You need to go now or Cardin might leave."

"Ugh-I knooow, I know, it's just... why does it have to be that bastard? Why Cardin? Why couldn't Port just get Pyrrha to tutor me, or just... anyone else, _anyone_ who isn't that jackass?"

Ruby, somewhat sheepishly, replied to her big sister, stating, "Yang, I... look, don't let whatever he did in the past bother you, okay? That doesn't mean you have to approve what he did. Just... ignore all of it, and you can make it through."

Yang brought her head up to look at her little sister, visibly shocked by what she heard. "How can you just be okay with saying that?" She asked.

"I'm not okay with saying that, but... you really don't have anymore options, Yang, other than trying to... tutor yourself. Which- and no hard feelings- I'm sure you... can't really do at this point." There was just silence that followed Ruby's statement, leaving the three members of RWBY to wait for Yang to only sigh, accepting her fate of relying on Cardin to teach everything she needs to know to pass Port's class. She was already having a difficult time in that class by herself, choosing to continue out without a tutor would be a suicide in terms of passing the first year.

"Yeah... you're right, Cardin... I guess he's... egh- my last choice, isn't he?" Yang inquired to no one in particular, getting out of her bed and picking up her notebook used specifically for grimm studies. "Unless..."

She looked over at Weiss, who only stared back at her, raising one of her pale brows in question, yet already knowing what Yang could be thinking of. "You want me to tutor you, instead of having Cardin do it, right?" Yang didn't say anything, only giving the small heiress a small grin instead. "If that's the case Yang, then no." Then her grin dissipated.

"But why?!"

"Yang, you already have a tutor, which again, is Cardin. You don't need a replacement if you haven't even had a session with him yet. Besides..." Weiss felt a warmth of small envy fill her up. "He's probably a better choice than... me. It's like that brute was raised by grimm; he's basically the most well-educated here at Beacon when it comes to knowing... well, _everything_ there is to know about grimm. Port essentially praises him everyday he's in his class, so, again, I believe Cardin is the best option for you, Yang."

Hearing Weiss admit someone was better than her when it came to school was an alien thing to listen to for the three girls, something that Yang would be bellowing in laughter about. But in this case, no one was even quietly giggling, due to knowing how right the Schnee girl was right.

Yang, now accepting her fate once again, slowly nodded her head, understanding Weiss' reasoning. "Okay, okay... then I'll be going I guess." She opened their dorm room door, saying "bye" before reaching for the doorknob, stopping when someone started knocking from the other side.

"Hello? You in there, Yang?" Upon hearing Cardin's voice, the blonde let her head fall back, huffing out air before reaching for the knob again, twisting and opening the door, intentionally hitting Cardin as she pushed, who let out an "oof" while moving back for Yang to fully open the door, seeing her with notebook in hand, barely glaring at him, which he didn't even notice while she shut the door behind her. "Oh cool, you are. I got tired of waiting so I came here for you. Are you ready?"

"... Yeah, I'm ready." Yang replied to the hooded behemoth in front of her, sounding a bit disheartened, which Cardin was able to distinguish in her tone.

"What's wrong? If you don't want to do this in the library then we can always do it in my room." His alternative choice of their spot to study did little to appeal to Yang, who would have rather chose to be stuck in a room with Remnant's most vile and violent grimm, rather than be alone with Cardin, or god forbid his whole team.

"Ugh- no no, the library is fine, _Cardin._ I-"

"-Or if you want, we could study in your room. I wouldn't mind either way."

The brawler interrupted Cardin, snarling as she said, "Cardin, the library is **fine** , okay?"

"... Okay." The Winchester answered in a hushed tone as an effort to calm Yang down, who indeed did feel a bit of agitated weight lift from her shoulders after hearing Cardin speak in such a manner. "So then... let's go now." Yang quietly, and slowly, nodded her head in agreement, her violet eyes wandering a bit to the floor as Cardin started walking, prompting her to follow behind him.

The two trotted without speaking with each other, Yang still choosing to stay behind the young man as he lead her to the library. Cardin of course cared little about this for it did little to bother him, though he did look back occasionally to check if Yang was lagging behind, never meeting her gaze directly, somewhat stimulating his worry now, though not enough to stop him from waving it off.

Eventually the duo of Xiao Long and Winchester reached the library, and as usual, the majority of was being used for things other than studying, with almost all of the students being a tad louder than acceptable volume, but it easily ignored by Cardin and Yang. One thing that Cardin did not ignore though was the fact that the books he planned on using with tutoring Yang were now at a table that was occupied by a team- ABRN if he remembered correctly- who, just like almost everyone else, weren't using the library properly. At least that's how Cardin perceived it.

Now he could just let it go and retrieve the books back from the table and find a new one for himself and Yang, or he could comply to his irrational side and be confrontational about this. He could drive them away from the table and take it back for his own usage, but Cardin's ability to reason told him how easier it would be just to bring the books back to a different table, rather than start another fight.

So Cardin told Yang to, "Go and sit over there," pointing at an empty table, "I'll get us the books we'll need." Yang did as she was told, going over and sitting at the table he directed her to. She sat there and watched Cardin, who already mystified her as she witnessed him walk over to the table occupied by ABRN, who were visibly disturbed and irritated by his presence. The blonde kept on watching as he picked up a stack of books from their table, without saying a word or even acknowledging them, and would have walked away if hadn't been for Bolin saying something to him.

Yang did not hear what he said specifically, but she knew he said something that clearly offended Cardin because the crass giant turned heel and decked the Haven student out of his chair, knocking the young man out cold while the rest of ABRN got out of their chairs, Reese and Nadir rushing to aid Bolin. While Arslan got into Cardin's face, looking ready to tear him apart while he looked amused by her audacity to stop him.

But suddenly, while almost all of the students around him now had their eyes on him, Cardin's mood changed as he violently grabbed the blond girl by the neck, holding on tight enough to give her a severe sense of suffocation while he brought her up to his hooded face. What followed though was what Yang could only assume was Cardin verbally digging into Arslan, softly whispering into her ears while she took wheezing breaths and tears dripped from her cheeks.

This verbal lashing lasted only about thirty seconds until Cardin released the Haven student, letting her fall and crumple onto the floor, gratefully gasping with Cardin looming over her for a moment before heading back to the table, where Yang sat, looking unfazed from what she just watched. She had observed Cardin, and his teammates, act like this so commonly that she had gotten used to seeing it. But that didn't mean she was not disgusted by their barbaric behaviors though.

"Okay," Cardin let out in a breath, clumsily falling into a chair across from Yang and setting the books down in between them, "let's get started. Now, Port said we should first work on the grimm that were on the last test we took, so first we'll re-"

"- Seriously? You're going to start tutoring me as if nothing happened? You just attacked ABRN, Cardin, right in front of me."

"... And?" Yang sat there in silence for a few seconds before sighing, rubbing her brow while Cardin kept on waiting for a response, until he decided ask, "Do you want to know why I did it?"

"... I-I don't know- why? What reason do you have for feeling justified for cheap-shotting what's-his-face, then man-handling their leader?"

"Okay, well, first of all, their names are Bolin and Arslan. Secondly..."

"..."

"Bolin... asked me when is Dove gonna take his last breath. I... I don't why he would ask such a thing, what called for it, but it..." Cardin flashed a snarl in an instant, almost being missed by Yang but she managed to catch sight of his fury almost getting the best of him. " _ **It...**_ it... pissed me off. Dove... my whole team, I love them. We've all been friends ever since I was like... three. But..." Cardin went quiet, feeling wary about what he was going to say, but still went through with it, making sure to be careful about what words to leave out this time.

"I haven't told a lot of people here about this, Yang, but... Russel, Dove, Sky, they're my adopted brothers, its been that way since we were little kids. When their... parents died, my mom adopted them one-by-one so that we wouldn't be separated from each other." Yang was not anticipating to hear such news to come out of Cardin's mouth, now getting a better understanding of why Cardin would harm Bolin in the first place. "So when I heard Bolin... _mockingly_ ask when Dove's gonna die, I lost it and struck him down." He leaned forwards, lifting his head up a bit higher to look Yang in her eyes with his own. "Tell me, tell me that you wouldn't do the same if Bolin did the same to you. Tell me you wouldn't knock that jackass out if he asked that same thing about Ruby."

"..."

"..."

"... I'd want to, Cardin, but..."

"But what?"

"... You can't just go around hurting people because they-"

"-You'd do it if it was **me** asking it." The tension between the two was palpable after that statement, Yang breathing deeply as she felt the sense of impending doom, expecting Cardin to lunge at her, wrapping his teeth around her neck like he did to Coco and not letting ago until she begged him to stop. Fortunately, he managed to dissipate the atmosphere between them by apologizing. "Sorry, sorry, I don't mean to make you feel anxious or anything. I'm just... just mad. Forget I said that and... let's start tutoring, okay?"

"... Okay." Yang replied, gently nodding as something horrifying rose up behind her, a sight Cardin hadn't seen in a long time. It looked like a human male, naked, just as large as him, but with its skin covered in yellow teeth, from head to toe, growing out of its skin, hidden to the point that only Cardin could see clumps of red-orange hair squeezed between the molars and canines, and the golden eyes with pure black pupils.

But like with all hallucinations caused by his sleep deprivation, Cardin blinked once and it disappeared, leaving him to be in peace with tutoring Yang.

"Oookay, let's start with the creeps..."

* * *

"So, that's him?"

"Yeah, that's Cardin."

"What is he wearing?"

"That's a poncho, Emerald. You never seen one before?"

"No, yeah, I have seen them- I meant to ask why he's wearing it?"

"I dunno, he probably likes it. Is there something wrong with that?"

"No, no, I don't give a crap about what he wears. It's just... you smell it too, right?"

"Oh no, yeah I can smell it. It might be him though."

"There's no fucking way its him, it has to be the poncho. No one can just walk around smelling like that themselves and not notice it."

"Well then don't you think he knows its his poncho instead?"

"I- Okay, you know what? Forget it. Let's just talk about what to do with him."

"Oh, yeah, Cinder told us to avoid him."

"... What?"

"Avoid him. Or just don't go and irritate him to the point that he starts a fight with us."

"What the hell? Why doesn't she want us to go near him? Does she think we can't handle him?"

"... Yeah... yeah, I actually asked Cinder why she doesn't want us to go near him until she, and Neo, come to Beacon. And she said it's because we won't be able to take him down in a fight."

"Are you fucking- I could totally destroy that oath in a fight!"

"And I'm sure... you'll get destroyed yourself. BUT, but, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. We won't even be going near him until we start the attack. Hell, I asked Cinder what we're going to do with him, and she said not a damn thing."

"... But... so what? Salem doesn't want him?"

"Apparently, she has other plans of what to do with him and his mom. But until then, we'll have to follow her orders as told.

"..."

"..."

"... What if..."

"What?"

"Well, I have a couple of idea of how to deal with him."

"Emerald-"

"-No, look, what if we..."

"..."

"... No, no- never mind. It wouldn't work..."

* * *

"Ugh, look at all of this. The damn woman should be dead from alcohol poisoning by now."

"Do you want me to clean this up, Richard?"

"No, no Sure-Shank, I can... gah, my loafers are gonna be all sticky now- Sure-Shank, just go find Ziz, and tell her the news. This is going to take me a fucking hour "

"Okay..."

"..."

"..."

"... Ziz? Ziz, Ziz wake up."

"Mmmmph, geeehh... who... heh-heh, _heeeyy_ Sure Shank. Whats... whats you want?"

"Oh, you're still drunk."

"Yeeaahh, stiiilll... drunk..."

"I had important news to tell you. But we better wait until your sober."

"Well, if that's the case, then I have some important _news_ to tell you too."

"What is it?

"I, want, to, fuck."

"Oh..."

"..."

"... Okay. Is there... a-anything you want me to- GAH! ZIZ!"

"I want to **fuck,** Sure-Shank!"

"Yes, I know! Just get off me!"

"But I want to fuck you damnit!"

"N-No! This is wrong! This is just you being drunk, I-I-"

"-You stupid, fucking, cock-mongrel! I was faking it! God- why are you so fucking dense?"

"What? But-"

"-Shut up! Okay? Listen closely, fuckface. It has been three, **three** , years ever since I boned anyone, Sure-Shank. And you... heh-heh-ha- you, YOU owe me."

"What the hell do you me-"

"-If it wasn't for me, you'd still be mining against your will. If it wasn't for _me,_ you'd still have to sleep every night on some filthy, puss-ridden cot, probably crying your pathetic life to sleep. If it wasn't for _**me**_ , you'd probably be dead right now, hanging by a fucking noose out in the gardens, or riddled with bullets from a firing squad!"

"..."

"... And just in case, you little, UNGRATEFUL, shit, don't think you owe me after hearing what I just said, then let me remind you of this: I am your leader. I am the Baroness of Disown. If you do not comply with what I desire from you, Sure-Shank, then I will personally feed sodomize you every night, until the day you f-u-c-k-i-n-g die. Understand?"

"... Okay..."

"Okay? Does that mean you're gonna be a good boy and serve your Baroness just this once, with this fear-boner I'm feeling right now?"

"... Y-Yes."

"Good, good. Don't worry, Sure-Shank, this won't be as bad as you might think..."

* * *

"Alright, I thiiink... we are done here."

"Are we?"

"Well... we just spent an... jeez- - like an hour-and-a-half tutoring. I think we covered enough for today." Cardin exclaimed, closing the book he was currently using in front of him and getting out of his chair. "You got everything written down, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." Yang replied, just finishing up with a few last notes in her notebook while Cardin gathered up rest of the books on Creeps.

"Cool, then I guess I'll see you Monday then, right here again." Cardin.

"Okay."

"A'ight, then... bye." Spoke Cardin before he left Yang alone to finish her notes, walking off among the halls of bookcases as she closed her notebook and left for the door.

She had to admit it: despite Cardin getting into a scuffle with ABRN and staring at something that she couldn't see, the rest of the tutoring session went pretty well. The young ruffian was able to keep her attention- unlike Port who loses half of his students whenever he starts talking about one of his many adventures- and describe the behavior and anatomy of Creeps in a simplistic way that helped Yang understand everything there was to know. Overall, Yang was starting to feel as if this will work out after all, even if Cardin occasionally acts like a bastard.

As Cardin walked among the aisles of biographies, autobiographies, recorded history, stories and encyclopedias, putting away each one of the books he used away, he couldn't help but think of that false creature he saw today. It was again, an event he had gotten used to seeing every six months or so, thanks to his accursed sleep deprivation, but that does not mean it didn't leave an imprint in his mind every time he had one. Seeing what he decided was suppose to be him but with teeth for skin definitely burned his thoughts, making sure it'd stay there forever along with every sinister hallucination he had.

But it still did not bother him much. the only way it could do that is if Yang looked back and was able to see it too. In a way then, Cardin guessed he did have a fear for them, it being that one day, one of these illusions created before him will be real.

All this pondering of his hallucinations, along with not knowing what was behind him while he put the last book away, made Cardin's heart drop to his stomach when he felt a pair of arms drape over and wrap themselves around his chest.

"Hey there, Cardin." But he thanked God that it was just Coco greeting him with a sultry voice warming his leather hood. But then that gratitude turned into befuddlement, wondering why the hell Coco was doing this.

"Why are you doing this?" He even asked her with the same words, now confusing her a bit too while he brushed her arms off and turned around, looking down into her aviator-covered eyes.

"Excuse me? Why am I... I was just saying hi, Cardin."

"Hi? That's a real sensual way to say _hi,_ Coco. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind you touching me like that, it's just that... don't you hate me?"

"What?" Coco felt only more confusion by his next question, starting to think Cardin just forgot what they did together just yesterday. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because all we did was have sex, that's it. It's not like that changed me or anything."

"..."

"I'm still Cardin, okay? I'm still the most hated student at this school, and there's a reason for that. Hell, just today I knocked out a student for offending me."

"Well... why did you do that? What did he say?"

"... He asked me when Dove was gonna die, mockingly."

"Then it sounds like you were doing the right thing... kind of. If someone asked the same thing to me about any of my teammates, I would definitely knock them out too."

"Yeah- but that still doesn't mean I didn't change. I'm still... still a bastard. Even if I've been holding myself back from harassing other students, that doesn't mean I changing."

"... Well, you wanna know something?"

"... What?"

"I don't _care_ what you are." With that, Coco stood on her toes to go us and peck Cardin on his lips, getting no visible reaction out of him, while his insides were going warm. "In fact, I disagree with what you're saying. Don't you think trying not to bully or hurt people who don't deserve it is a clear sign of you trying to make yourself a different person."

"..."

"..."

"... I don't like being corrected." His statement got a small giggle out of Coco, the corners of her lips lifting up a bit as she gave him another smooch, now getting him to smile in her manner too. "this doesn't mean you're doing all of this just for the sex though, right?"

"No, Cardin, I'm not saying all of this just for the sex."

"But you're doing this after we had sex though, after I basically made you have sex with me though. And even then, you still did everything you can to make sure no one knew we had sex in the fi-"

"-Hey... shut the fuck up, okay?"

"... Okay." Cardin muttered softly with a saddened tone.

"I mean, here I am, willingly putting everything I EVER thought about you aside, practically admitting that I like you now, and you're still acting skeptical. So listen closely: I don't care if this is all happening after what we did yesterday, I don't care what you are, and I don't care about what you've done. All that matters to me is that you're making an effort to change, and I'm giving you a chance to do so. Okay?"

"..."

"Cardin?"

"... No... no- Coco. I... I don't want a chance with you, okay? It's not because I think you're not pretty, or because I think you aren't a great... person. It's just that I can't... I can't get caught-up with relationships like this, not now in my life..."

"..."

"May be one day I'll be able to give you a chance, Coco, but not now. There's too much stopping me from just having a girlfriend."

"... What is it?" Coco asked, her teeth somewhat grinding against each other when she inquired Cardin. "What is it that's holding you back?"

And Cardin replied, with little to no emotion in his tone, saying,"... I can't tell you... Not now at least. But until then, we can still be friends if you like. Or aq... ac? Ac... acquaintances. Okay?" She felt deflated emotionally, but still respected Cardin's wishes, quietly nodding her head with a minute frown that went unnoticed by Cardin. "Good. Well... see you later."

He walked away on that, leaving Coco to stand there and accept what happened. He did look back to see her, and that hallucination standing behind her, forcing Cardin to shake his head and wince before looking back to where he was walking...

* * *

"Hey guys." Was the simple greet that Yang gave to her teammates, and JNPR, both having been in the dining hall eating dinner.

"Hi Yang, how did it go?" Ruby asked her sister as she sat herself down next to her little sister, placing her notebook to the side and her tray in front of her.

"It was... it was fine. Cardin's better than I thought he'd be."

"... What?" Jaune asked, which he might as well had been doing for the rest of his team.

"I got Cardin as a tutor for Grimm Studies, Jaune. I just got done with our first session, which like I said, went fine." Jaune gave a silent _"oh"_ in response to her answer. Yang purposefully left out what happened between him and ABRN though, feeling like it had no reason to be brought up with her friends. "He even shared with me some personal stories about his childhood."

"...Like what?"

Yang answered her little sister, responding with, "Well... it wasn't a story actually. He just told that his whole team are his adopted brothers. It turns out... well, their parents dies when they just little kids, so Cardin's mom decided to adopt them so that they could still stay together..." Yang trailed off, with her out-of-nowhere statement letting a heavy drape of shock fall on everyone at the table, except for Ruby, who waited, listening if Yang mentioned anything about them being from Disown.

"Huh, that's rough, but... also nice at the same time." Pyrrha looked over at Jaune, clearly shocked by what he had just said, which prompted him to reiterate. "I-I-I didn't mean like that! I meant it's nice that his mom adopted them so that they wouldn't be separated."

"Oh, sorry." His redheaded teammate replied, bringing her gaze back at Yang before asking. "Was that... all he shared with you?"

"Yeah, that was pretty much it..." Yang's reply was a confirmation to Ruby, presuming that he purposefully left out anything about being from Disown, unless her older sister was leaving that out, or had just forgotten about it. Whatever the situation was, it made Ruby feel comfortable with sharing what she found out about Cardin yesterday, since it had nothing to do with Disown either.

"... Yesterday, I learned something about Cardin too."

"Oh, what?" Xiao Long inquired, bringing her attention towards her little sister.

"I asked Cardin's... brothers about why he's sleeping so much during the day, and it turns out he has insomnia. He got it from restless leg syndrome, and his body temperature being high for an average person. Dove told me Cardin's insomnia usually prevents him from sleeping around midnight, and even then, he'll wake up early in the morning and can't go to sleep after that..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... I... I kind of feel bad for Cardin now. His whole team really." Jaune's statement actually got Nora and Ren to silently nod their heads in agreement, both of them easily sympathizing with the unfortunates past of Russel, Dove and Sky, while also feeling pity for Cardin's condition.

Everyone at the table felt varying levels of condolences for them in actuality, even if they act unruly from time to time.

"But... don't tell Cardin that we know anything though. I think us telling Cardin things we know about him when he hasn't even told us about it would... probably put him on edge..." Ruby's warning also received silent agreement from everyone at the table...


	7. You Are, My Fire...

_"Alright boys, today will be our first day of training. Fortunately, due to special circumstances, you four little shit-nuggets will only be training with me, since I can't trust any of you to fucking behave yourselves at a combat school. But don't worry because I, along with Richard and Sure-Shank, are going to teach you boys some high-level shit that those schools for primitives don't teach you."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"..."_

_"Now before we begin, do any of you little malformed freaks have any questions?"_

_"..."_

_"Yes, Dove?"_

_"Do we get weapons?"_

_"Oh shit- yeah, yeah, I forgot. Sure-Shank, go get their weapons."_

_"Yes Ziz."_

_"What? Wait, we don't get to make our own weapons?"_

_"Well... no, Russel, you don't. It's mostly because we've just opened our combat schools like, three fucking days ago, and the resources we used up making those damn facilities put us in a tight-situation where we chose to accept Vale to give weapons to us. Alternatively we could have focused on making weapons instead while Vale built weapons instead, but I said fuck it and chose to build the schools instead."_

_"... Okay."_

_"Yeah, yeah, whatever Russel. Oh and the thing is for you boys, we didn't even make your weapons, they're basically from huntsmen who died during the war. In fact, Cardin,your weapon is- once belonged to Lagune."  
_

_"... Cool."_

_"... Little unappreciative fucking shit- anyways, uh... I guess we can wait until Sure-Shank come back..."_

_"..."_

_"What, Sky?"_

_"Why can't we go to a combat school?"_

_"I just said the reason why: I'm not sending any of you to a combat school because I can't trust any of you asses to behave."_

_"That's not fair though! You're-"_

_"-Another reason though is because we live thirty-three miles away from the nearest combat school. Okay? If it wasn't for that then I would actually let you boys go to one."_

_"... Okay. So then why didn't you say that instead of telling us you don't trust us to behave?"_

_"... Asking questions like those Sky will get you another black eye, boy, understand?"_

_"..."_

_"... Sky."_

_"Fuck you."_

_"... That's it you little cunt. I'm-"_

_"Ziz!"_

_"What?!"_

_"ZIZ!"_

_"WHAT IS IT?!"_

* * *

"Ziz? Ziz, ma'am, wake up!"

The leader of Disown, disgruntled from having been awoken from her sleep at what her alarm clock read as 6:23 A.M., growled as she felt an overwhelming urge to just break down her door and murder Richard as he shouted for her behind the door.

"What the fuck is it you jackass?!" But she instead blasted at the man, who still jumped back despite not even being in the same room with her. "Well?!"

Richard answered her as he heard stomping heading for the door, replying with, "The airship is coming in seven minutes, Ziz, have you even properly equipped yourself yet?" She stopped after hearing his reason, scrunching her face up in anger while she gripped her inhumanly long, light-brown hair, before letting loose with a series of swears.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP EARLIER?!"

"I-I tried to, Baroness, and I presumed you had had waken up when I knock-"

"-SHUT UP! FUCKING HELL- Okay, okay hold on, I-I'll be right out." Ziz quickly stripped herself of her pajama bottoms and tank-top, still cursing to herself as she threw open the door to her bedroom's bathroom. The disheveled dictator twisted the knobs in her shower, cleansing herself of the filth she normally accumulates at night, brushed her razor-like teeth, and adorned her attire. Ziz went on with opening her bedroom door, finding no one there for her to push out of the way as she move on and tripped down the stair, letting loose another storm of vulgar language as she hit the last staircase.

It did little to faze her though, leaving Ziz to just get up and brush off her armored-dress. She proceeded to head for the large, chipping wooden double-set of doors and pushed them open, screeching and scraping against the porch of her ancient mansion, claimed as a prize after slaughtering one of the many wardens on Disown, that sat in the middle of a rustic field of wheat, covered in drops from a recent storm, with the edge entering into a now-dead forest of black and white broken trees, scorched from fire, with aged soot covering the forest floor.

From her mansion was a wide path, mowed for vehicles to drive on, that also split off and led to a crude, man-made landing pad, suited for an airship that had just landed, opened and silent with Richard and Sure-Shank waiting for the terrible human that was Ziz, who walked with agitation for having to check on this discovery again.

"I believe this is the fastest Ziz had ever gotten ready for anything in her life."

"Wow cool." Sure-Shank replied to Richard, not caring for what the old man said, which he was able to pick up on easily.

He didn't say another word until Ziz made it to the airship with a permanent scowl etched on her face as she walked pass the two old hunters, who followed her as the ship closed its door. In it she found more damaged men and women, all of them unstable to different degrees, and just as dangerous as Richard and Sure-Shank. They were her "bodyguards", a notion she found ridiculous due to believing just her, Richard and Sure-Shank would be enough to keep her safe. But Richard's constant insistence of having them after the war was finished broke her mentally, forcing Ziz to finally agree to having them.

"We could have told the pilot to wait for you ma'am, you didn't need rush-"

"-Sure-Shank, Sure-Shank... j-just shut up, okay? Shut your fuckin' pussy-licker and let me rest up for the trip." He, and Richard, and everyone else, blanched at Ziz's remark, who forced her protectors to move without her even touching them, and roughly fell onto one of the seat, rubbing her eyelids as the airship came to life...

* * *

In Emerald Forest, out among the youthful trees, lying on blades of green, hidden too deep within the thicket to be monitored by anyone, was Cardin. He slept, wearing nothing but a white t-shirt, blue pajamas with red, vertical stripes, large gray slippers, his black, red-lined poncho and leather gloves, all stained and ruined by mud and grass stains, all the while covered by a brown, torn-up sack, acting as a temporary blanket.

The young man had remained in the forest for some time now, like he usually does ever since he had arrived to Beacon, but rarely has he ever been exhausted by his covert-activities so much that he fell asleep. But with it having happened in the past, Cardin was not startled when he yawned and slowly opened his golden eyes to see nothing but the natural canopy, feeling the fresh air cool his body as he rose up into a sitting position, stretching his back, his arms, and his legs.

Cardin hissed though, frustrated that he ended up here yet again, shaking his head as well in disapproval. He threw aside the sack that covered him and pushed against the grass to standup. He took a moment to look at his clothes, growing more irritable from seeing the mess he was in, but soon pushed his anger out when he said, "fuck it," deciding that this was like the best outcome for him falling asleep in the middle of Emerald Forest. Though Cardin knew there nothing in this forest that could threaten him, including the grimm.

Thinking of them, Cardin drew his attention to casually searching his surroundings for any of them, yet only found their footprints, taking note of the direction the grimm traveled as a sign that the opposite direction was where Beacon was, or he hoped at least. If Cardin has his scroll with him, then he could use it to guide him back to the academy. But he doesn't take that thing with him at night however, because of his belief that Ozpin can track students by their scrolls, thus his reason for never taking it with him when he traveled into the forest at night.

So Cardin, using the tracks as a sign, started walking in the opposite direction, his footsteps crushing fallen, dark-green leafs and blades of grass. He went his way with a sense of peace, taking in the sounds of the wild as a soothing symphony as his gaze wandered about, looking for any indication that this was the right choice. Lo and behold, Cardin found one, much to his relief after having wandered for an amount of time unknown to him.

Cardin found himself exiting Emerald Forest to end up at the cliffside of Beacon, slowing himself as he walked to the very edge to take in the view. It was all unimpressive to him really. Every night, after he'd finish tasks, Cardin would always find himself walking along the cliffside, seeing the view it offered so many times that he grew sick of it.

Anyhow, Cardin could tell that it was far after morning, probably even a bit after noon, maybe even around his second, or last period, and Beacon was quite a ways away from his location. And with today being Thursday, Cardin broke into a sprint in order to reach the academy before he misses any more of the day. He wasn't doing it for the classes though, he was doing it just so he can reunite with his brothers. he thought they must be worried sick, thinking of what could have possibly happened to him.

Unfortunately, Cardin stopped when he felt a pang of intense hunger take control of him, stopping to clutch his stomach as his knees grew weak, forcing him to fall down while still clutching his moaning stomach. It made no sense to him, how could this be happening to him after he had eaten so much last night? Cardin didn't bother to ponder on the thought for long however, he could barely think at all when he looked up to see a doe, having left the forest too, standing still as a statue as she stared at the massive student.

That long, strong, thick tongue of his licked chapped lips at the thought of ripper her apart, and with no one around, Cardin let himself get taken over by a feral force.

He charged right at the mammal, prompting the doe to turn and be slammed by the massive weight of Cardin, having already reached her before she could even take a few steps. Ribs cracked as the doe let out a cry of pain, flying off for a good nine or ten feet before taking a crash landing, further breaking her while Cardin quickly rushed to her side, huffing and puffing like a beowolf or boarbatusk, relishing the thought of claiming his prize.

When he neared her, Cardin lunged and grabbed the doe by her neck, making the injured animal to panic and flail about with all her might. Though due to him, she could barely even move anything but her neck, though a doe being able to escape the grasp of a hunter-in-training is just a joke. That reality came crashing took a clenched fist and caved the mammal's skull in with a single strike, effectively ending her life and pulling away his hand.

Now with her dead, Cardin took his gloves and poncho off, proceeding to gut the creature with his claws, having to put in more of an effort since his claws were more round on their tips, making a mess as he opened up the creature. Its intestines fell out, staining the green grass with crimson, prompting Cardin to immediately grab and pull it out, not hesitating to place the organ in his mouth and start chewing, then pulling out more, and more, and more, until he had finished up the last bit, the inside of his mouth now having a strong taste of iron that only made him want more of her.

So he then reached further into the dead doe, feeling the warmth, squishy, wet inside of her furry shell, ripping out her kidneys to eat, her small stomach to consume, her liver to devour, her lungs to ingest, and her heart to partake of. Then he moved on with the eyes, gouging out the slippery, soft orbs and greedily swallowing them in one gulp. After that, Cardin further cracked open the doe's skull, taking about a minute to scoop out all of her brain to pig out on.

The doe was nothing but a bleeding husk at that point, filled with very little, save for bones and veins. Cardin had somewhat tired himself after the feast, just sitting there on his knees, palms pressed against the cold, stained grass, taking deep, shaky breaths as he ascended back into his usual state-of-mind. When he came back, Cardin didn't even worry about having just eaten raw meat, since he had worst. Instead, he was worried about all the blood that covered him.

Now he could just say it's the blood of a doe he had killed, but people would ask him why he killed a doe. Or when did he kill a doe? Or they could even question if it's actually human blood. Overall, Cardin believed going back to Beacon would draw unnecessary attention to him if he didn't hide the blood. Though when he further examined himself, he saw that most of the blood only stained his shirt, hands, and poncho, three things he could easily fix.

First, he just put his gloves back on, then he turned his poncho inside out, and finally, he took his shirt off and bundled it up so that no one could see the red leftovers on it; he didn't mind if he had to walk into Beacon shirtless, mostly because he knew no one would dare make fun of his appearance, him being slightly more of an endomorph than an mesomorph. The young brute then quickly licked his lips to get rid of any remaining crimson, tasting a bitter metallic liquid coming off. Then finally, he got up back on his feet, taking a few steps back to look at the mess he made, not feeling any remorse because at least it provided sustenance to him.

Cardin walked over the dead doe, not looking back as he started to run, not looking back as he moved his legs at an inhuman rate. He kept running, running, running, and running until he stopped, bending over, his hands on his knees as he pant and wheezed like a madman, having just reached Beacon close enough to the point that he could make out the main avenue, devoid of any one in general.

At this point, the Disown ruffian started to feel his throat burn, barely though, not enough to even make him think that he was going to puke. Cardin at this point chose to walk now; him having just ran non-stop for what he guessed was little over three miles sucked out a substantial amount of energy from him, so if he didn't want to pass out from exhaustion, then Cardin was going to have to walk.

That burning sensation soon turned into that familiar sense of bile now, getting a "Fuck" out of Cardin as he finally got onto the main avenue, still with no one in sight as he trotted along towards the academy, soon passing by the first circle of gargantuan archways. By then, he almost let the waste out of his mouth, but managed to hold it back, though much to his chagrin, Cardin knew he was going to have to let it out eventually.

Which was now, actually, after he passed the second, smaller circle of stone archways. The same, black, burning liquid came out as one would expect, steaming as Cardin stopped in front the academy statue to up-chuck his midnight dinner and just-eaten snack, some getting into the water. He felt his head tighten as he did so. Unfortunately, it didn't stop after the first time, with Cardin soon throwing up the stick, chunky substance out again, his eyes watering and nostrils burning, mentally crying as he wondered why bad stuff happens to good people.

Just after his second session, Cardin remained silent while staring at the disgusting pile that pooled around his slippers, just gazing into the everlasting, seemingly- brilliant, burning-glory of an abyss it created before his golden eyes.

Then he threw up thrice, wincing as he felt like he was scorching, weeping externally this time as the feeling of this never ending befell upon him. Cardin just fell onto his back after five seconds, feeling like he was about to explode like a fireball impacting a solid surface, all the while vomit still came out, now covering his face, neck and bare chest, making him feel like the most vulgar creation ever created, in history of the universe.

It did stop, and he did thank God for having mercy. Yet, he found himself being unable to move any part of his body, feeling everything go numb as his eyelids started to to flutter, and even though he heard the bell ring for the students to come out, Cardin didn't care. All he wanted to do now was just sleep, just sleep, just sleep in his sweaty, puke-covered, fleshy shell...

* * *

"This isn't good maaan, this isn't _gooood._ "

Sky- who just expressed how he felt about Cardin's absence, Dove, who sat on his bed like Lark, while Russel simply looked out the open window to their room, staring off into the distance.

"We need to find him," Sky kept on going, "Cardin hasn't ever been gone for this long."

"Yeah no shit," Russel replied, not looking at his teammate as he said so, "we'll have to look for him."

Dove glanced up at Thrush, saying, "Look for him? He's lost in Emerald, Russel, and you want us to go look for him in there?"

"Dove, we got nothing to be scared of out there, you dumbass, w-"

"-No no- I know that," Bronzewing cut the speedster off, standing up and proceeding with, "but we don't know where the fuck Cardin is going in there to..." He looked at his scroll with paranoia similar to the Winchester's before going on, an action noticed by Lark and Thrush, who understood what was going on. "... We don't know where he going to do his shit."

"Well, yeah, we don't know where he's going _exactly._ " Russel replied, "but we can't just keep on waiting Dove. Something... definitely happened to Cardin and we need to fucking find out what it was and get him back."

"... Okay," Dove made a gesture, pointing towards the dorm room door, "but we can't do this by ourselves. We'll need help."

"WHAT? Help? Who's gonna help us?!" Sky asked rather aggressively, getting up now as well. "Who the fuck's gonna lend a hand with finding Cardin?! Everybody hates us so much that they'll just fucking shut their doors on us, and we can't go and get Ozpin involved or else we're risking what Cardin's doing getting found out. Hell, we're doing the same thing if we get help from somebody who isn't a faculty member."

"So then we're just gonna go out there and search for him by ourselves?! That'll take way too long and it'll put _CARDIN'S_ safety at risk instead!"

"Oh- okay! So we'll just go get Ozp-"

"- I wasn't finished!" Dove blasted, causing both of his brothers to jump in shock, intensely looking back at the red- seething face of Bronzewing, who's hair became a little disheveled just now. "There's some people who might help us... RWBY."

"... Do you mean the team or-"

"-Th-the team, Russel, the team."

"Oh, okay."

"... Yeaaah... so, how about-"

"-What makes you think they're going to help us?" Lark inquired with a hint of doubt.

"Well... when you think about it, they're really the only ones who'll most likely help us, or at least Yang and Ruby will. Cardin seems to have done well with improving his relationship with them so... yeah, either we get them to help us or... or we'll just go and find him on our own."

"..."

"..."

"... Ugh, okay look, I already got a plan for us."

"Oh r-"

"-Shut the fuck up." Dove told Russel, nonchalantly, pissing him of just by how he waved him off. "Look, you two can start looking for Cardin in Emerald while I go and try to persuade RWBY into helping us, okay?"

"... What if they want to know about what he does in the forest."

Dove assured Sky with a confident tone. "Don't worry about that. Like I said, I have a plan on getting them to help us." Albeit, Dove thought to himself how terribly simple his plan was, but he still felt sure in himself that he'll be able to coerce them into helping.

"... Okay."

"Fine, fine." Sky and Russel themselves felt unsure of this mystery plan of Dove's, but yet knew that they could not waste anymore time with bickering on what to do. So they picked up their weapons and left the room, leaving Dove to stand there in his lonesome solitude, deeply breathing for a few minutes or so, giving his teammates a head-start before he picked up his own machine-gun sword and exited the room himself, looking at the door that belonged to team RWBY.

He walked, each step matching a judder from his heart until he was in front from the door, with a rather large amount of verbal commotion coming from the other side. Dove stood still to listen for a few seconds before he realized JNPR was in there with them, or at least that's what he thought, hearing Jaune and Pyrrha among the chattering voices, giving Dove the idea of possibly getting them to join along with their search party.

Dove, with a few beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, while starting up a bit of crocodile-tears, knocked on the door, hushing all of the chit-chat going, and prompting someone walking to the door, probably to look through the peep-hole before saying, "It's Dove," being barely audible to his ears. The door was pulled open before him to show that it was Yang, staring at him, already, but barely, looking a bit confused by his presence, noticing the few false tears that rolled down his cheeks, while also revealing to him that the entirety of JNPR was in there with her teammates.

"Dove? Is there-"

"Hey, sorry, but..." He took another deep breath, stuttering as he did so before asking, "You, uh- haven't seen Cardin, have you?"

"... No, not since yesterday, why?"

"We think something bad might have happened to him. Cardin... he's been gone since last night, and...a-and we don't know where he is. Russel and Sky went to tell Ozpin about this and told me to go looking for him. So I-I just stopped by to ask if you guys have seen him, but i-if you haven't then... I-I'll just go get on going." Dove looked the left to see an empty hallway, taking just barely a few steps before his plan succeeded.

"Wait!" He stopped himself when hearing Ruby shout for him, turning back to see her having just come out of her room. "Dove, I'll help you look for him."

He wanted to smile wickedly, but Dove held it back to maintain his fake humbleness. "Thanks, Ruby. L-"

"-Hold on, I'll come too." Yang stated, following in her little-sister's footsteps, much to his delight.

"Wow, thanks you two, but... y-you should get your weapons before we go." That request put everyone of them off, mystified by such a demand like that.

"Why should we get our weapons?"

"Because... well, my team and I thought about it, and we decided that Cardin may be lost in Emerald Forest. His student I.D. is still in his room, so there no way he could have gone down to Vale. He can't be on the campus either because he should have been found by now. So we... we're thinking he lost in the forest. So if any of you are gonna help us... then you should all get your weapons and anything else you'll need..."

* * *

"Well look at this broken down piece of shit right here, boy!"

Cardin's eyes fluttered back open as he was awoken from his power-nap in response to the voice, belonging to a young man he remembered all too clearly. The fact that this was happening to him in his weakest moment made him take back his thanks for God he made earlier.

"Yo dirtbag, get that tub of lard you call an ass up, so I can knock IT back down!" Cardin, who's awareness for his surroundings was blurred by pain and a sharp, high-pitch ringing in his, tried to do so. Though when he found himself standing, he felt like his legs were nothing but wet noodles, forcing him to fall down on his knees and hands. At the same time, Ron Mahogany gave the most rural laugh ever heard by anyone, enjoying the sight of a broken down mess while the rest of his team, and others students who just stared on from a distance, looked on with shock and pity from seeing the kind of state Cardin was in.

"Come on boy, get up already! COME ON- GIT!" Ron knocked off Cardin's hood, exposing his face for the world to see and prompting him to immediately cover his looks with his gloved hands. That did not stop Ron though from grabbing the giant student by his orange-red hair and pulling him up by it, only to deliver a brutal, aura-fuel knee to his hidden face, getting a loud crack from his nose breaking as Cardin fell onto his back, groaning as he put his aura to work on the wound.

"Bam bam! Broke your nose faster than my daddy broke mah' ass with his belt! How does it feel, _Cardin?!_ " All Ron got was a weak, muffled laugh from Cardin as he envisioned the mullet-brunette getting whipped from behind with a belt. This of course infuriated REDD's leader and prompted him to go for Cardin's hands and pull the away from his face, catching a glimpse of his snarling, razor teeth and enraged golden eyes before Cardin pulled back with all the strength he had. "Damn Cardin. You're, **_ugly._** Don't you worr' bout a thing though, boy, I got the perfect beauty cream right here."

For a moment, Cardin spread his fingers to see Ron just pulling his arm back with a clenched fist, about to strike once more. This actually relieved Cardin, who had presumed Ron was actually going to unbuckle his pants and piss all over the Disown giant.

"... Hey, Ron."

"Whut?" Fortunately for Cardin, again, Ron stopped himself to look back at Diamond and his teammates, taking note of the gloomy features that had sprouted in their gazes.

"I... I know Cardin's an racist asshole, and I'd loved to wail on him for being one... but this isn't right."

Ron gave the tiger-faunus the most dumbfounded look ever, his mouth agape, his blue eyes bulging, and his brows raised highly, creasing his forehead as he got up from Cardin and said, " _Oh,_ excuse me?! The fuck you just said, Diamond? Too far?! TOO FAR?! This," Ron pointed down at the unstable beast below his feet, "this dee-gener-ATE, deserves everything that comes his way! But yet, you think this here dirtbag doesn't?"

"You're a fucking _dee-gener-ate,_ Ron." Cardin said, mocking the first-year student in the process. "I bet you like fuck your cousins, you inbred freak."

And Ron shot back, "Shut up!"

"Ron, listen," Diamond started again, taking back her leader's attention, "just look at Cardin right now. Look at him and... fucking- look at all this shit he threw up. It's obvious he's sick right, he can't fight back or even properly defend himself, and yet here you are, attacking him while he's down. We all get it that he's just horrible, but... what you're doing right now" Ron looked back down at Cardin, who had actually pushed himself back up on his hands, just to only throw up some more. It was a sight that convinced Ron that his actions were indeed wrong.

"Fuck it," but he'd never admit it, now right now at least. Ron would rather have himself look like he did not care for what Diamond said, and instead throw away his desire to harm Cardin anymore, over him openly acknowledging she was right and let Cardin hear his admittance. "Come on, let's go, I'll just leave you to wallow in this here heap you made for yourself."

With that, Ron turned around and walked away from the unstable student, with his team following him as expected. Diamond however, stopped to look back at Cardin one last time, still puking, thinking of helping him to the medical building. But, she chose not to, due to her believing that leaving him there would be a suitable punishment for him, so she turned back to catch up with her team.

In reality, Cardin had actually not heard a single word that the tiger-faunus said. He just guessed Ron was letting him puke before moving on with beating him down. With that in mind, Cardin had not even bothered to look back up to see if REDD's leader was still there; the child of Ziz just fell back down, making sure he didn't land anywhere near the black bile, landing the side of his head against the cold, solid, rough surface of the main avenue into Beacon, looking right at the base of the statue, waiting for Ron to continue on with giving Cardin his just-deserts, even feeling sleep take hold of him yet again as he waited in anticipation.

But, it never came. No fist, no kick, nor jeer was directed at Cardin. That was when he realized Ron must have left. But even then, Cardin did not push himself back up; he felt too drained to even think of such an idea, let alone being able to move his arms efficiently. So, the gargantuan student decided to do the only thing he can do, other than calling out for help, and that was sleeping. He will sleep, until all his energy comes back to him. None of the other students that he could see showed any interest to help him, that was also the reason for why he did not bother to call out for help.

Yet, judging from the sounds of footsteps approaching him, Cardin presumed someone was going to prove him wrong.

"Hey," It was Coco, talking to him from behind, "is... everything okay."

"... No... no, everything is not okay, Coco. What a dumb, fucking question..."

"... You know, I was going to stop Ron from beating you."

"Why didn't you do it, then?"

"I thought you were just gonna snap after awhile and just beat him up instead, but... I was wrong. You just... lied there, in your own vomit, taking it..."

"... Can you just help me up?"

"Okay."

"And... help me with getting back to my room? I just feel... like total shit man, like my legs barely work, and my arms-"

"-Cardin." He went silent from Coco cutting in, staying so for a moment as she pinched the top of her nose, sighing before saying, "... Fine, I'll help you with that."

He weakly thanked her for her kindness, and Coco replied with grabbing Cardin by his arm, effectively pulling his whole frame up by it and draping his appendage over her shoulders, and basically walked away from the sight of his puke, with Cardin's feet just dragging against the avenue, all the while they left behind his white shirt, until Cardin remembered it and asked for Coco to go back to get it, much to her annoyance. But she still accepted his request and got his bloodied top back.

"Oh shit- Cardin!" Just as they went back and picked up his shirt, Russel and Sky finally reached the main avenue themselves, surprised and relieved to see Cardin was just still breathing. The two, however, were also befuddled a bit when they saw it was Coco who was helping Cardin. But they did not bother to question her decision to help him, rather they chose to spare any talking and instead went to take Cardin off her hands, thanking her for coming to his aid, and telling her she can go.

But she didn't. Coco insisted on coming with them to make sure Cardin gets back to his room without any further injury, which Sky and Russel granted, letting her follow them, holding Cardin's crimson soaked shirt in her hands, actually having just noticed there was a lot of blood on it, yet not bringing it up.

And eventually, the four students were confronted by Dove, with Ruby and Yang traveling alongside him, unexpectedly getting to see Cardin's face without being covered by his hood for the first time ever. But, just like Adel realizing the was blood on Cardin's white shirt, the two sisters did not bring up Cardin's face being exposed either, instead choosing to follow the four boys back to their room...

* * *

"Alright, how the _fuck-ing_ exploration been going so far."

"Ah, Baroness, so far we have yet to encounter anymore troubles since last Tuesday with exploring the structure. But..."

"... What?"

"There... we did expect there to be so many chambers within it. We're pretty sure we have fully investigated all of the room withing the construct itself, but once we started go down beneath it, we've started discovering... just-just more and more chambers of various sizes, along with different belongings in each, a-and more remains as well."

"... Okay."

"... O-Okay?"

"Well, it sound's like you guys have been doing well so far, so... yeah, okay."

"... Well-"

"-Oh fuck- there we go, got ourselves an _oh._ Just tell me what the fucking problem is so I can... I dunno- I just wanna fucking kill myself."

"Excuse me?"

"Tell me what's wrong!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, Baroness. The problem we have been having recently is... well, the people you've assigned to work with me have been... experiencing..."

"... What, ghosts?"

"What? No, never! There's no such thing as..."

"... Well, I believe in ghosts, along with a lot of things actually, but... look, just tell me what's fucking wrong."

"... I don't know maybe it is ghosts, or something... else, but... so far, ever since our last incident, we have been hearing, feeling... and seeing... _horrors_ that we can't explain."

"... Okay, okay... I don't got time to talk about what it is you're seeing down there, and... I'm morbidly interested by what you said, but... look, the things you people are seeing... they aren't going to _hinder_ anything now, are they?"

"... The soldiers, and workers, they've been scared so much to the point th-that they won't even go back into the structure anymore."

"Fucking shit- some of those men and women I gave **you** survived the war with Vale. Fucking hell- some of them almost died during that time, and nowadays they're the toughest bastards on this god-forsaken shit-heap of an island. But now you're telling me they're _scared_ of a few bumps in the night?! How about I just call this whole thing off and send you all back to the work I had planned out for you fucking primitive homunculus creatures to do in the first place!"

"..."

"Or, you can all just grow up, and get your asses back down there now."

"... Baroness, they won't go back down unless we get more people on this job."

"... Are you fucking kidding me? That's the solution here?"

"Baroness, the problem here is more that they are just uncomfortable with exploring that thing by themselves."

"I fucking gave you six people to work on this, isn't that enough to make them feel comfortable?"

"... No."

"Oh my- okay, okay, you're lucky we have a lot of soldiers to spare. How about... I don't know, thirty soldiers to help? That way you little pussies won't get scared of being alone here anymore?"

"Y-Yes, thank you Baroness."

"Yeah you better thank me..."

"..."

"... Wait, Richard!"

"Ah, yes., ma'am?"

"I want you to send a... request to Ozpin."

"And what will it be?"


End file.
